Astro Death voyagers Cryptic Shift have returned to the mothership with “Overspace & Supertime”.
Forged in 2015 in Leeds (UK) with their own take on the technical progressive death metal genre, the likes of Nocturnus, Voivoid & Death helped craft in the 90s but adding their own British slant. The band have been touring globally for many years off the back of their phenomenal debut album, “Visitations from Enceladus,” released in 2020.
Now signing with the legendary Metal Blade Records, the band embarks on their sophomore album & go further into the vortex of space & time.
“Overspace & Supertime”, the band’s newest effort, is the most diverse, punishing & progressive album to date. Five tracks clocking it at nearly an hour & twenty minutes, you know you are in for the journey.
Opening track “Cryogenically Frozen” has a great thematic opening, filled with gorgeous jazzy clean guitar chords, deep synth tracks & great echoing talking head samples build the intensity. As the eject button beeps & the album’s protagonist is injected from his craft the true story begins. Angler but hypnotic guitar riffs start & vocalist / guitarist Xander Bradley force of nature lyrics are adding to that aggression. The first half of the track is a great mixture of mind bending riffage, blasting sections & great soaring leads. Ryan Sheperson’s drum takes on this track is superb. A very raw sounding kit, double kicks pack a punch & hit you hard.
Just as you hit the near six minute mark there’s a great blasting section from the band that had me throwing the stink face hard. After this the track builds in its feel, bassist John Riley really adds to this section with his thick, but effect seeped tone. Fingers that are like guitar picks perfectly executing every note perfectly. The band brings back the intensity at the tracks closing the last few minutes. For an opener this is the perfect way to let the audience know what they’re in for. Already the band are showing a progression from their last album & i can’t wait to hear the rest.
With its anthemic opening, “Stratocumulus Evergaol” is a near thirty-minute opus. With clangy reverb-soaked picking guitar melodies filling your ears, you feel like you are getting bathed in grandiose. The band built this phenomenal, jazzy, hypnotic passage for a few minutes. Building its atmosphere one instrument at a time. Bradley’s harsh vocals over this clean, ethereal passage have great juxtaposition.
The band build this opening to the perfect moment before they crank up the warp drive & increase the ferocity enough to give you that death-metal kick that has been earned. Clean, beautiful chords are strummed & on a dime, the bands’ doomy, brutal punch hits. Furious in tone & feel. This track has so much flow. Ranging from two-step parts, thrashing d-beat style drums & quick blast beats. The pace changes constantly, but unlike most progressive death metal bands, this doesn’t feel like it’s showing off player skills, it’s all for the song, the songwriting & the craft. Which is what it’s all about. Even for a knuckle dragger like me, Cryptic Shift gives the listener too much to grasp onto & all has feelings and is so memorable.
For those who have wanted to see the band push the limits of their sound, “Hexagonal Eyes (Diverity Trepaphymphasyzm)” delivers in spades. With its death-thrash feel, this one is a pure rager. Fellow guitarist Joss Farrington gets to show off on this one with the billion guitar riffs that are just pure face-melting. The breakdown part on this track is phenomenal. Giving a nice little feel of the members’ other project, Slimelord, this section is pure armageddon. A single palm-muted, scratchy guitar builds the brutality before the whole band comes in on a dime & unleashes the fury. This is the kind of stuff Darth Maul listens to in his spare time while practising all those sick moves.
Each track is taken back by Bradley’s vocals. It’s a great mix between snarling & aggressive while keeping the pronunciation clear and precise. His vocals don’t just sound like filler, they feel like another instrument & sometimes they sync with the guitar riffs & great cohesion that makes it that much more punchy & brutal. As JarJar Binks would say, “Messa loves this track”.
The closing title track, “Overspace & Supertime,” feels like the band’s most expansive & boundary-pushing to date. Really pushing the clean sections with sounds I’ve never heard before (I know they love their guitar pedals) & some of the most monolithic heavy passages to date. All sandwiched between great appearances from Mike Browning of NOCTURNUS with two theremin solos that will melt your brain!
I know the band always has a story in mind when writing tracks, but this one feels like their most epic & could easily be the soundtrack to Dune, Star Wars, or some hidden-gem 80s sci-fi film! With the dynamics they
play with, hell, there is even some gang vocals on this track. Yep, you read that right. Some great, thrashy, hardcore-style gang vocals.
Cryptic Shift is a VERY special band. Technical progressive death metal as a genre is a hard-edged thing to penetrate. It can be off-putting to most, but there are only a few bands that can break out of the genre & just be a great band that hits every aspect of the extreme metal genre that anyone can enjoy. Joining the ranks such as Nile, Nocturnus, Blood Incantation & Cynic as bands that can cross the boundaries (of time and space) to craft albums that, as a whole, are true forces of nature. “Overspace & Supertime” is the most thorough, passionate & comprehensive death metal album I’ve heard in years. It’s a true masterpiece of metal.
Review: Joseph Mitchell
Overspace & Supertime is out via Metal Blade Records on 27th February 2026
| Cryogenically Frozen | ||
| Stratocumulus Evergaol | ||
| Hyperspace Topography | ||
| Hexagonal Eyes (Diverity Trepaphymphasyzm) | ||
| Overspace & Supertime |
