Cryptosis will make itself heard.
Created in the Netherlands in 2013 under the name of Distillator, the Thrash Metal band offers us an EP, two full-lengths and a split with Space Chaser before changing its name. Since 2020, Laurens Houvast (guitar/vocals, ex-Face the Fact), Frank te Riet (bass/mellotron/vocals, Omgeving) and Marco Prij (drums, Blasphemy Night) oriented to Progressif Thrash, that they unveil us with Bionid Swarm.
The band opens us the gates of its futuristic and space universe illustrated by Eliran Kantor (Acrania, Cult of Lilith, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Incantation…) with Overture 2149, a quite calm but worrying introduction, before falling over us with Decypher’s riffs. Even if the aggressive Thrash basis is still here, the band adds some complex and majestic parts creating a contrast with those vindictive howlings. However, the universe is captivating, between violence and fascination the sharp riffs generate, just like on Death technology. The bass sound is clapping and very present, closely following this fast-paced guitar under a flood of raw hits and howlings. It’s on Prospect of Immortality, the longest track of the album, that the band unveils its Prog side the most, with notably a dissonant and quite soaring introduction, to which Thrash metal violence is progressively added. This melting between rage and technicality is surprising and still very interesting, melting far effects, heady tapping and some groove.
Transcendence goes back to the hellish fury of an Old School Thrash Metal with sharp riffs and raw sometimes piercing screams, but we feel again that the sounds that come with this basis are very moderns. Perpetual Motion comes to offer a break during this wave of technicality with an orbital sample, then a voice announces Conjuring the Egoist, a song with fast-paced introduction that literally crushes everything on its path. Riffs take more impressive stains, and the rare breaks make the sound fall over us again, with this crushing feeling. Game of Soul, the next track, stays in those more direct sonorities, with however dissonant intriguing harmonics, and once again the melting is effective, just like on the soaring Mindscape. The long introduction offers us again those futuristic sonorities while including a solid rhythmic, then ambiances take over, unveiling a majestic dimension to the song. The final lead accompanied by whispers is beautiful. Flux Divergence, the last song, brings a lesson of Thrash Metal, melting a powerful Old School basis with those modern influences the band cultivates since the beginning, and the song will be the origin of many headbang sessions.
Cryptosis is not just a name change, it is an evolution, a progression. The band’s style changing offers us a supersonic, impressive, majestic and smashing Bionic Swarm that we won’t forget easily!
95/100