CRYPTOSIS — Celestial Death

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CRYPTOSIS - Celestial Death cover
3.82 | 4 ratings | 2 reviews
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Album · 2025

Tracklist


1. Prologue - Awakening (1:16)
2. Faceless Matter (3:52)
3. Static Horizon (5:10)
4. The Silent Call (5:02)
5. Ascending (3:38)
6. Motionless Balance (1:48)
7. Reign of Infinite (5:44)
8. Absent Presence (4:15)
9. In Between Realities (3:47)
10. Cryptosphere (4:22)
11. Coda - Wander into the Light (3:11)

Total Time 42:05

Line-up/Musicians


- Frank te Riet / Bass, Mellotron, Synthesizers, Backing Vocals
- Marco Prij / Drums
- Laurens Houvast / Vocals, Guitars, Spoken words

About this release

Century Media Records
CD, Vinyl, Digital
Released 7th Mar 2025

Thanks to Nightfly for the addition



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CRYPTOSIS CELESTIAL DEATH reviews

Specialists/collaborators reviews

UMUR
"Celestial Death" is the second full-length studio album by Dutch thrash metal act Cryptosis. The album was released through Century Media Records in March 2025. It´s the successor to "Bionic Swarm" from March 2021, although the two full-length studio albums are bridged by the December 2023 "The Silent Call" EP.

While the material on "Celestial Death" is in some ways a continuation of the technical/progressive thrash metal style of "Bionic Swarm", Cryptosis have increased the progressive songwriting and mindset on "Celestial Death". It´s overall a much more polished, sophisticated, and above all keyboard driven release, almost to the point of being a symphonic oriented technical/progressive thrash metal release. The album features an epic atmosphere and the music is often multi-layered with guitars and keyboards filling every space of the soundscape. The keyboards are quite dominant on this one along with the raw shouting/semi-growling vocals. The guitars are often in the back of the mix and the same can be said about the drums and the bass. In that respect the mix is a bit uneven, and to my ears louder guitars and less keyboards would have made "Celestial Death" a more well balanced release. The sound production unfortuately ends up making the material sound less powerful and raw than it could have been.

With the negatives out of the way, "Celestial Death" is still a high quality release from Cryptosis, featuring high level musicianship, solid songwriting, and despite my issues with the production, a professional sound production. It´s definitely the sound of a band who have evolved and who aren´t afraid to try new things, and the adventurous mindset is admirable. I do hope they ease on the use of keyboards on the next album though, but it´s just my subjective opinion. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.
Nightfly
Bionic Swarm was one of my favourite albums of 2021. Technical thrash, not unlike Vektor. A dynamic album packed with great riffs, strong hooks and excellent musicianship. Four years later Cryptosis are back with album number two, Celestial Death.

One of my most anticipated albums of recent years, I’ll come out with it straight away and say my initial impression was one of disappointment, though it has grown on me somewhat since. Whilst still in the cyber thrash territory of Bionic Swarm the most obvious change is the greater dominance of keyboards, especially mellotron. Synths and mellotron were present last time around but didn’t overshadow the razor sharp guitar work of Laurens Houvast. He’s not totally obliterated, but his riffs often (not always, especially later in the album) merge into the barrage of keyboards taking the edge off them. Having said that, though still solid, on the whole they lack the memorability of last time and nothing here blows me away like Decypher, Prospect Of Immortality or Transcendence did.

Having got the negatives out the way Celestial Death is still a fine album and if I’d not previously heard Bionic Swarm I’d probably be singing its praises a lot more. There’s still plenty of good songs on offer like the blackened thrash of Ascending and Reign Of Infinite, perhaps my favourite here. More progressive elements, largely down to the keyboards are on display which never a bad thing as far as I’m concerned. The melodies are still there but require a few more plays to reveal themselves and that melancholic vibe I liked about the debut is still there too as is the excellent musicianship.

You’ve probably grasped by now that I’m not as blown away by Celestial Death as much as Bionic Swarm but all respect to Cryptosis for showing some growth. After my initial disappointment and having had time to digest the album better with repeated plays I’m still happy with and enjoying this. Writing this review helped me focus on its strengths and I’m still more than eager to hear where they go next.

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