Cryptosis – Celestial Death Album Review

17th March 2025 0 By Laura Jane

Celestial Death is the follow-up release to 2021’s acclaimed “Bionic Swarm” debut album by Dutch trio Cryptosis. Merging futuristic experimental elements with thrash metal – does this album mark a new direction for Cryptosis sound?

The album Celestial Death is a 11 track album with a feature run time of 42 minutes 9 seconds which makes this album an average length in regards to other releases of a similar genre at the moment. With it being under 1 hour in listen too means it’s a perfect album to get listening to whilst travelling, cleaning the house or generally potatoing on the couch after a hard day of surviving.

Highlighted tracks on this album that stood out to me were ‘The Silent Call‘, ‘Static Horizon‘, and ‘Reign Infinite‘. I loved the dynamics of the tracks with shifting tempos in songs that kept you guessing alongside some stand-out riffs which I found myself getting stuck in my head for a few hours later all making up a solid basis for a Stella (I was going to make a space joke here and I guess the use of the word Stella does this… but… you get the point) release. With its intense and intricate guitar solos and crisp rhythm work the album does a good job of keeping you as a listener engaged to what is going on and what is to come.

With the album exploring cosmic themes, and delving into an dark atmospheric approach there is much to question and deep delve about it’s lyrical composition which reflects humanities desire to explore the unknown and to seek knowledge on the open universe. It has impact, it’s raw, it’s emotional, I would go so far as to say lyrically it’s a masterpiece.

As noted above the album Celestial Death is a follow-up to the 2021 release “Bionic Swarm” In comparison to this album I feel that Cryptosis has gone above and beyond and proven that you can experiment with your sound whilst still carrying the weight of your original roots. Although this band would possibly categorized as leaning more thrash-heavy heavy I do believe that even if you’re not a major lover of thrash (like myself) there is something on this album for anyone who can appreciate progressive music with futuristic and dystopian themes.

Overall, I found the album a great listen. I can praise so many elements of this album from its lyrical makeup to the continuation of their innovative approach to music however, I don’t feel that I could score this album higher than an 8/10 on the grounds of that for me, I just felt that although it had the depth and the boldness there I couldn’t help but think during listening to this album that it was missing something. It felt like being edged multiple times without an actual climax, the potential is there – the sound is there but it just seems to hit a point where you’re left sitting questioning ‘Where is this going?’.

I would highly recommend this album to anyone who is on the lookout for something new with dramatic flare. I would recommend this album to fans of bands such as Warbringer, Evile, Vektor ,and Paranorm. This album earns a solid 8/10 with the AATR seal of approval.

SCORE: 8/10