Cryptic Shift are a death/thrash metal band from the UK and this is their second album.
Do you remember when Cryptic Shift opened their 2020 debut album Visitations from Enceladus with a 26-minute song? Well, now they’re back with a new album called Overspace & Supertime, and, with a duration of 82 minutes, it sees them in even more epic moods.
Overspace & Supertime contains five tracks. Three clock in around the 10-minute mark, but then the next longest ramps up to 21 minutes, and the next after that lasts 30 minutes. Cryptic Shift are not lacking in bold ambition nor ideas.
Of course, the main thing to take away from Visitations from Enceladus was not the running time of the first track, but rather the quality of the music. Cryptic Shift’s progressive death/thrash metal offered up a compelling and enjoyable sci-fi journey, and caused a lot of people to pay attention to the band. Rightfully so too. Now, Overspace & Supertime has arrived, and it basically doubles down on everything that made the band’s first record so good. Delivering a huge feast of progressive and technical extremity, this mammoth new record covers a lot of extragalactic ground.
Overspace & Supertime is not easy listening. It’s not the sort of record you stick on when you want bursts of short, ear-friendly choruses, or when you are looking to get hyped up in the gym, or whatever. Not for most people at any rate. No, this is a far more niche beast, and will appeal to those that like some challenge in their music.
You see, these songs are long, complex, intricate, and very involved. They boast a selection of jagged riffs, sharp melodies, expressive bass lines, and nuanced drum sections, but they also defy casual analysis. They do have an instant appeal factor, but it’s difficult to parse in any real way upon just a single encounter or three. In other words, Overspace & Supertime is the very definition of a grower – this album takes time and perseverance to get to know, but the more time you spend with it, the more it impresses.
Or, will you be one of those that provisionally likes what you hear, but ultimately fails to untangle the music’s labyrinthine structure and deep progressive explorations? Time will tell, as it’s only time that will reveal Cryptic Shift’s secrets.
Broadly speaking, Overspace & Supertime is one massive alien soundscape. It rolls, jumps, teleports, flies, runs, explodes, oozes, and lurches from one moment to the next, forming its five colossal songs almost as it goes along from moment to moment. In this way, it almost has a grindcore feel; a series of short, seemingly unconnected bursts of creative ideas, one after the other until some overmind considers the song complete. Of course, it is more coherent and well-thought-out than that, but the point is that Cryptic Shift’s songwriting is non-standard, cares little for conventional structures or dynamics, and instead just wants to paint the most vivid, overstimulating, elaborate pictures possible, all while telling a very specific tale. This is a band with a lot to say, and in Overspace & Supertime they have developed their voice into a roaring chorus of interwoven sounds.
Chaos, then. But, chaos controlled, chaos directed, chaos channelled. Cryptic Shift are conductors of the 90s tech/prog/death/thrash style, before launching it into the future, to dazzle and terrify listeners into a splatter of awe-inspired goop.
The best way to experience Overspace & Supertime is to just…experience it. Sit back, let the mayhem, creativity, and layers of sound wash over you, absorbing all of the riffs, the solos, the atmospheres, with a growing sense of wonder and joy. Cryptic Shift have created a record to truly explore, to truly spend time with, taking in the sights and avoiding the occasional wormhole, asteroid, or extraterrestrial attack.
Overspace & Supertime is an odyssey of progressive death/thrash science fiction. It’s a journey into the imagination, with Cryptic Shift as the very capable storytellers and guides.
Wonderbox Metal 