This is the fifth album from German death metallers Cytotoxin.
2020’s Nuklearth was a very good album, so it’s great to have Cytotoxin back once more. Containing 48 minutes of new material, Biographyte offers a radioactive feast of death metal for us to savour and enjoy. It’s the band’s longest album, but fear not, Cytotoxin know what they’re doing.
Biographyte starts with no preamble at all, which I love. Hope Terminator explodes with a bright eruption of technicality that sets the stage perfectly for Cytotoxin’s brand of technical and brutal death metal. Nice.
As a starting point for describing the Cytotoxin experience, I’d like to invite you to imagine a band like Wormed or Beneath the Massacre. First, give them a more structured framework in which to express their complex insanity. Then, weld on an emotive and atmospheric side that appears out of the carnage like the ghost of past disasters – a touch of Psycroptic, maybe. Next, throw in some spare parts from bands like Dying Fetus, Soreption, Origin, and Aborted, for good measure. Finally, coat everything in the spectre of nuclear catastrophe, and you have a decent idea of where Cytotoxin are coming from.
In fact, Cytotoxin’s grasp of emotion and atmosphere is underappreciated I feel. Frequently across these songs they transcend their own ferocity, bringing atmospheric and feeling-rich elements to play that elevate the songs unexpectedly. It’s all delivered within the band’s twin assault of heaviness and complexity, but it’s great to hear a band unafraid to explore mood-based components in their sound.
On these new songs Cytotoxin favour a blast-and-groove approach that’s filtered through a distinctly tech death lens, giving it an engaging flavour. As mentioned though, there’s more than just that here. The songs are ferocious, aggressively dominating the rad-scarred landscapes around them, and there’s real value to be found here amidst the ruins. Cytotoxin write death metal with heart and substance, augmenting their core of technical devastation with a songcraft that showcases their development as artists.
48 minutes is a long album for death metal, but Biographyte feels half the length. Yes, it has two utterly pointless filler interlude tracks, (removing these saves four minutes, resulting in a tighter, leaner, improved listening experience), but ignoring those, Biographyte is high quality DNA-altering death metal, through and through.
Biographyte is a compelling and extremely satisfying mix of instant appeal aggression and longer lasting worldbuilding. It’s a rare collision of brutality, melody, technicality, and hooks. Cytotoxin have brought their A game to Biographyte, and it’s a hideously good listen.
Very highly recommended.
Wonderbox Metal 