Australia’s extreme metal crafters Psycroptic have returned after four years prior to their last album As The Kingdom Drowns and this time around, they’re back hungrier and more creative than they ever sounded in their career. I have been a Psycroptic listener for long as I can remember while having the opportunity to see them live in 2018 at the Devastation On The Nation Tour and not only have they surpassed my expectations from their live performance, but the deliverance and execution of blending elements of technical death metal well as experimental I truly feel Psycroptic are one of the most exciting bands to have come out of the game in quite sometime.
Psycroptic’s vision into creating technical death metal carries through the imagery and craftsmanship which this album went leaps and bounds to whole new levels as the members contributed themselves to play their rightful instruments and have discovered many new inherent abilities and challenges to see where the bigger picture stands. The fluidity of these tracks are at a nice balance of progression, technicality and the structures alongside the soundscapes and instrumentation work is superb since Psycroptic surely knows to take a self-assurance of creating such suffocating atmosphere with layers upon layers of crushing brutality and narrative threads making these songs feel as collective and well arranged.
Just hearing songs like Ashes Of Our Empire, This Shadowed World and A Fragile Existence are filled with such naturalistic song variations, polished production, matured songwriting and a continuation that’s undeniably straightforward where the technical death metal signatures have been accompanied one another where I felt this is a great continuation to the band’s catalog. Divine Council is Psycroptic’s most confident and detailed albums the band has created in such a longtime.
Overall Score: 8.5/10
Review by Jake Butler
