Cryptosis - Celestial Death Review • Strah

My last review on an Extreme Metal band was with Wombbath’s “Beyond the Abyss” and there I said how impressed I was with the resourceful Extreme Metal musicians were. I also said Death Metal has its own dynamic which means not only Progressive Death Metal, but also any other genres within Death Metal are using more complex music writing in order to stand out from the crowd. That’s the impression I got from Cryptosis with “Celestial Death,” extremely well-cared instrumentals with a very complex and intricate music writing.

I would like to talk first about “The Silent Call,” the track that impressed me the most due to the contrast of raw energy combined with intricate playing. “The Silent Call” has the ability to be at the same time sweet and fierce. But how does that happen? Cryptosis deal with the track as they parts as legos that go connecting with each other. So, the sweet and the raw are combined together very carefully to deliver the desired effect. It is also true the band worked very hard to combine ethereal effects and classical instrumentations. It also jumps to they eye the way “Ascending” and “The Silent Call” are connected in a way the fan cannot realize when one is over and the other commences. Accordig to vocalist and guitarist Laurens Houvast “We learned a lot from our debut album. The biggest lesson we learned was how to create songs that really come together as complete pieces, rather than just combining riffs.”

Connected with the Extreme Metal trend to add a kind of cosmic terror into the lyrics, “Celestial Death” features dark space themes open to discuss the laws of physics. For instance, “Reign of Infinite” is a clever combination of Rush’s instrumentals and lyrical contents with the raw energy of Death Metall with Cryptosis malevolent touch. Death Metal bands realized evil is not only on Earth, but also in the universe. The space seems to be calm and trannquil, but as we all know it is also the place of chaos, it may be an ordened chaos, but it is chaos.

In fact, I agree with bassist Frank te Riet who said “We wrote a lot of different material. We had so many ideas, which eventually ended up on a slightly different path – a more cinematic path, I would say. This new record has a much darker atmosphere.” “Celestial Death” is very cinematic in an uncanny way of saying, I have no doubt about it. The horror sci-fi kind.

Cryptosis “Celestial Death” was released on March 07th via Century Media.

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