CRYPTIC

In 1996, Swedish progressive death metal band Edge of Sanity released Crimson, a concept album consisting of only one forty-minute song. Crimson was an ambitious project, and later that year, EoS followed it up with Infernal, often considered a disappointment due to the internal struggle over the band's direction showing through into the music. Cryptic is the following album, and the only EoS album without Dan Swano. It's decent music and stylistically average melodic death metal/"melodeath," with most of the progressive elements absent. The band's sound has been un-complicated and sounds generic, each song speeding along at an unchanging pace, with a few exceptions. Hell Written is the only real prog song on here, switching from frantic metal to a softer, calmer part, like how Opeth writes (only not ten minutes long). The strangely upbeat riffs scattered throughout the album also stand out as different -- but other than these examples, there isn't much variation, and the band's innovative side is no longer present.

As mentioned earlier, Dan Swano does not contribute on this album. Instead, Karlsson takes over vocal duties. It's a slight improvement, but still mediocre. His vocals are little messy, as if he's slobbering while he growls, and he lets out the occasional "Yeah!" and "Let's go!" therefore succeeding in sounding somewhat stupid. Clean vocals are completely gone. On the contrary, Cryptic has some good riffs on it, and solos are common, but tend to get buried under the rest of the music instead of standing out in the forefront. The riffs suffer due to uninteresting songwriting, and the bass is audible but could be higher in the mix. Song structures are plainer and uninventive.

Cryptic may be nothing special, and overall sounds passable, but that's not to say it doesn't have its moments. Dead I Walk has an excellent opening riff, and Hell Written's brief soft section throws you in for a loop, but the song might have been more effective had it been placed later in the album, instead of as the first track. It could have broken up the monotony of the unchangingly paced, standard metal, and it sets a misleading example for something that does not exist on the rest of the album.

The album is a good length; much longer than its thirty-five minutes, and it would drag. Without Swano, it deviates from Edge of Sanity's already-established sound: the addition of progressive elements to death metal. Now the emphasis on progressive is gone, leaving only a decent melodeath album with a few untraditional aspects. Still, I'd recommend picking it up, but only after you've familiarized yourself with the band's other works.