Deathstyle

With Deathstyle, Deficit finally step into the version of themselves they’ve been hinting at for years, heavier, sharper, more self assured, and far more dangerous. This EP isn’t a stylistic experiment or a pivot, it’s a declaration. A sharpening of teeth. The moment where a band stops sampling influences and instead knits them into something that feels unmistakably their own.

What stands out from the opening moments is the attitude. Not the put on, try hard aggression you hear in a lot of modern heavy bands, but a genuine, chest out confidence that comes from years of grinding in Australia’s metal/hardcore ecosystem. Deficit have always straddled the lines between metalcore, hardcore, nu-metal and death metal, but here they stop worrying about fitting any mold at all. Deathstyle is simply the sound of the band doing whatever hits the hardest, groove when it grooves, stomp when it stomps, swing when it swings and trusting their instincts more than the algorithm.

There’s a rawness to the production that works massively in their favour. Nothing feels over polished or sanded down. The guitars bite instead of shimmer, the drums land like blunt trauma, and the vocals cut through with an emotional weight that feels lived in rather than digitally sweetened. It gives the whole project this sweaty, brick walled energy like the EP was built from the ground up for small rooms packed too tight, not studio perfection.

The greatest strength of Deathstyle is how rhythmic it is. Deficit lean heavily into groove and bounce in ways that feel more inspired by late 90s heavy music than anything in the current metalcore circuit. There’s swagger threaded through the whole project, that looseness, that sense of deliberate attitude that you only get from a band fully locked into its identity. Instead of drowning listeners in breakdowns for the sake of brutality, Deficit make every heavy moment feel earned, using tension, dynamics, and pacing to let the big punches land like body shots.

Vocally, the performance is the most versatile and expressive the band has ever sounded. There’s grit, there’s sneer, there’s a bit of theatrical menace in the delivery but it all sits inside the same emotional palette. Nothing feels forced or performed, it sounds like someone who’s walked through the worst parts of themselves and come back swinging. Lyrically, the EP carries themes of resilience, frustration, pushback, and self definition, but it never gets lost in metaphor or melodrama. Everything hits with the clarity of someone speaking from real experience.

If there’s one thing that makes Deathstyle feel like a turning point for the band, it’s that it finally captures the live threat Deficit are known for. The energy is punchy and confrontational, but also surprisingly catchy. It’s heavy music that wants to move with you, not just crush you into the floor. The riffs have personality. The rhythms have purpose. The choruses, when they appear, feel like rallying cries rather than hooks written to be hooks.

More than anything, this EP feels like identity. The creation of a lane, a sound, and a banner they can plant going forward. They’re not trying to reinvent heavy music, they’re just building a version of it that feels authentic to them, built on grit, groove, and a refusal to stay in one box. And in a genre full of repetition and safety, that honesty is what hits the hardest.

Deathstyle isn’t just Deficit’s best work yet, it’s the release that finally makes them feel like a band with their own orbit. A band with something to say, and the weight to make you listen.