Fire!, Gustafsson´s trio with bassist Johan Berthling and drummer Andreas Werliin, has quieted down somewhat on their new album too. Granted, 2018’s The Hands ended with “I Guard Her To Rest. Declaring Silence”, but still, hearing Gustafsson on flute, of all things, on this disc’s opening track “A Random Belt. Rats You Out” is a surprise (to be sure, he hoots and yawps through the flute, his need for noise irrepressible). Behind him, the rhythm section lays down an almost krautrock groove. Defeat features two guests — Goran Kajfes on quarter-tone trumpet, and Mats Aleklint on trombone and sousaphone — and adding their voices to the ensemble, both as choral elements and as soloists, gives the music a pleasing fullness, particularly on the second half of the two-part “Each Millimeter Of The Toad”. The trance-like patterns Berthling and Werliin play have elements of North African music at times, particularly on “Defeat (Only Further Apart)”, which also features a killer trombone solo and long wavering horn lines like winds blowing across the burning sands. The album’s final track “Alien (To My Feet)” is perhaps its most meditative, Gustafsson’s flute humming and whistling over a bass throb as deep as an undersea trench.