Like Vektor? Blood Incantation? Nocturnus? Voivod? Well, ladies and gentlemen I present to you England’s technical death/thrash metal band Cryptic Shift with 2020’s debut full-length through Blood Harvest known as Visitations From Enceladus. This album is a well written, almost addictive release filled with fast, aggressive thrash metal riffs mixed with rebellious 90’s influenced death metal and a progressive metal tone so incredibly detailed this will rock your socks off.
From the skill performances, diverse guitars, insanely tight and improved drums to the embodiment of loud-hard- balls to the wall furious death metal signatures, these musicians have created the ultimate bio-weapon of a album that’s innovative, well structured and the lyrics, my goodness the lyrics on this release is well articulated and comprehensive that I couldn’t speak much other than pure brilliancy. I’m extremely pleased with this particular release not because of the dynamics, signatures, arrangements, compositions and songwriting is absolutely fantastic in its own way, but for someone that appreciates music that brings technical skill, amazing components and bringing best of both worlds, England’s Cryptic Shift is surely a band I strongly recommend to everyone who are fans of extreme music.
Visitations From Enceladus should be required for any fans of death metal, progressive death, technical and thrash with a science fiction flair should not be passed on because this is top notch material by Cryptic Shift.
Overall Score: 9.0/10
Review by Jake Butler
