On a cold February Friday, Aarhus based band Boil was visiting the Danish capitol for the release party of their third album, and supporting them on this show were two local bands, Broken Hand Charity and Defecto.
The latter was the first one to play...

As mentioned, Defecto is a Copenhagen based band, and they been around since 2010 when vocalist/guitarist Nicklas Sonne merged his solo project Sonne with the band Deviant, run by Frederik Møller (guitars) and Thomas Bartholin (bass), as Deviant was lacking a vocalist. Lars Jensen (drums) joined the band in early 2012, and thus the current incarnation of Defecto was born. Since then, they have managed to release a self-titled EP, make the finals of the Danish edition of the Wacken Metal Battle, and enter the studio with Flemming Rasmussen (who everyone knows since his days working with Metallica) for work on their debut album.
Now, enough history.

Already entering the stage, the youngsters in Defecto looked like a fun bunch, with their wide smiles and even wider metal stances on already before they began playing. The attitude was further underlined by the ripped jeans and Kerry King look-alike chain that Sonne was sporting; the rest of the band was not uniformly dressed, but made the overall image work anyway.
On their Facebook profile the band describes themselves as a great many things, but boiled down it centres on a symphonic, progressive metal sound. In my ears at the concert it sounded pretty much like straight up metal with some blisteringly fast solo’s and some pre-recorded keyboards which never took the lead but helped make the overall soundscape more complete. Their playing was good, no doubt about it, but at a first glance (or listen?) it felt simpler than I would have imagined from a band under this moniker. Not that it was a bad thing, just surprising. Then again, you should remember that I didn’t know any of this at the time of the concert, so it didn’t bother me there...
Speaking of the sound of the band, I should also mention that the Metallica references didn’t end with Rasmussen working with them; my first thought on Sonne’s vocals was that this was probably how James Hetfield would sound if he sung in a power metal band. Quite interesting.

“Are you ready for some hard metal?!”
- Nicklas Sonne (vocals/guitar)

Despite having some interesting parts in the music and one hell of a drive on the stage, Defecto failed to completely connect with the little less than half filled room of metalheads; the reason for this is anyone’s guess, but it wasn’t for lack of trying, I’ll tell you that much!
In the beginning I was mildly entertained, but didn’t put too much into it as I was mainly waiting for the main act to come along, but after a while their positive attitude and wild posing (heck, even Jensen was in on the fun and played for a while standing up!) worked their charm on me and I warmed up more and more to the taste of Defecto, and before I knew it I was nodding along with a broad smile on my face; as did the rest of the room, and even though it never got really wild, a few headbangers were produced, and the band got some good cheers to carry them along the way.
The fact that Defecto managed to vary the tempo and energy a few times during their rather long set (for a first support band) certainly helped keep the interest up; Sonne changed his mostly used rock vocals in a few parts to growl, and the power ballad (ish I should add as the middle part was both heavy and somewhat speedy) God (which probably has a longer name, but this was all that was written on the setlist) was a really nice break in the otherwise pumping set. Later, when Sonne changed to his Gibson Explorer, we were introduced to a heavier riffing side of Defecto for the final song of the evening, Excluded, and I should not forget to mention the Helloween tasting dual guitar soloing in Drifting Into Blackness which I quite enjoyed.

“Thanks for the coffee, man!”
- Sonne (vocals/guitar)

On their way off the stage, Defecto got a final warm and loud cheer as well as a good round of applause, and it was well deserved if you ask me.
Defecto may not have brought too much new stuff to the table, but they were excellent at finding a lot of good stuff from around the metal world and mixing them together, and they knew how to handle themselves on a stage, a trait which is not to be underestimated! This could be good.

Setlist:

Desperate Addict
When Daylight Dies
Rage
Sands
God
You Had It Coming
Drifting Into Blackness
Excluded