Psycroptic are from Australia and play Technical Death Metal. This is their sixth album.
Psycroptic’s brand of Death Metal is sharp and finely edged, honed to a fine killing point through years of mastercrafted precision and expertise.
As such, they offer us 9 tracks of advanced-level Technical Death Metal over 39 minutes.
They’re not a band to get overly technical at the expense of the song though, as there are plenty of songwriting skills on display here too.
They also know how to write some emotive passages that have a kind of modern Blackened feel to them, almost akin to some of the harder, faster sections that bands like Enslaved do so well.
The vocals are aggressive shouts that also bring in semi-cleans and screams as appropriate. It’s typically the semi-clean parts that are the most emotive and remind most of a Technical Death Metal version of Enslaved, if you can imagine such a thing. Well, imagine no more!
They’ve incorporated a decent amount of variety on this release too, which, alongside the well-composed song structures, stops the album from becoming a one-dimensional blur of technicality.
I love the Progressive Metal elements of these songs, which help impart the feeling of a journey through Hellishly complicated waters with only the band as guides.
The playing is impressive all-round, of course, but I feel compelled to give special mention to the drummer as he puts in an astounding performance, especially for someone with, (presumably), the normal number of limbs.
An exceptionally good album.
Good review , kickass record!