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‘This is the best death metal from Texas right now’ was spoken affirmatively but quietly as if no other words were needed to convince oneself of the enormity of oppressive and condemning misery that Seclusion - Occultess Unknown… still holds to this day. Of course those words were spoken and the tape was handed to me in one of the best bars that country has to offer but even the warmth of the jukebox and fall and the broken peanut shells could not hold back the distance this demo will make you feel. The vast expanse between one's own intellect, identity and sense of security. A stone-weighted synth might even appear but don’t let that concern you…. this is perhaps one of the only demos involving even close to the glory and blasphemy of the fleshgrind demos but with a more textural and tomb like production. Rumors of the self-immolation photo shoot has been largely spread and supposedly contested. But let the images and flames themselves engulf one cloaked figure on the cusp of unnecessary anger, parading confidently as the flames reach higher and higher speak for itself. The meat hook is waiting for you and the ones you hold close.

Originally released on cassette on Thee Broken Window with bones and wax.

Dutch experimental raw death metal absurdity Cryptae return with their second full-length deformity, Capsule, their most aberrant, delirious and labyrinthine (master)piece of anti-music yet. Conceived through a deconstructed and radicalized approach of "less is more", this new chapter of conceptualized insanity sees the deranged duo of drummer/vocalist Rene Aquarius and guitarist/bassist Kees Peerdeman starve and disassemble death metal from within, as they explore a cryptic concept revolving around marine life and its abysses teeming with absurd and marvelous life forms. The staple high contrast minimalist/maximalist experimental approach of Cryptae in deteriorating the familiar fabric of death metal and finding new and insane ways to dismount and reassemble the genre through delirious aural experiments, this time reaches truly extraordinary and implausible new dimensions of the absurd. Entire strings of death metal's DNA are removed and replaced with components from other genres in a deranged and playful act of stylistic disfiguration, yielding deformities unending and essentially crippling the genre into an incomprehensible, skeletal mutation. A violently malformed and enigmatic abstraction arises from this delusion, through the forced abortion and abolition of all musical canons and decency, triggering a marvelous rebirth through conceptual annihilation and spasmodic nonconformity which is set to challenge and destabilize our perception of extreme metal at the deepest levels. A glitched and distorted sonic fractal of demented improvisation drives Cryptae's crippled and deconstructed raw death metal experiment, as primitive raw (post)-punk, repetitive and bludgeoning industrial, schizoid no-wave, and jazz-derived free-form backward moving meters and compositional oddities all do their part in completing a musical jigsaw of rare genius and hideous inventiveness.

Titled Dawn of the Axe, Cruel Force's long-awaited new album is, in many ways, a new chapter for the band. As presaged by that short-length, Dawn of the Axe harkens to dustier, more archaic times - ones where subgenre delineations weren't so strict and all was mostly Heavy Metal. For sure, Cruel Force can still thrash with the best of them - regular thrash, "blackthrash," whatever - but their sound carries a strong old-style speed metal edge reminiscent of '80s Kreator, Iron Angel, and Germany's Deathrow, sharp as an axe and just as lethal. And while the blackened elements of the first two albums have been dialed back some here, the overall speed of Lp#3 is, in fact, faster. But as Dawn of the Axe slices onward, it soon becomes apparent that that the quartet are subtly integrating a more rarefied field of influences, with the mysticism of '70s Rainbow and especially Scorpions most prominent as well as the blue-collar thrust of early US metal - again, all before the development of speed metal or thrash. Thus, the nine songs comprising the 39-minute album exude a wider variety of moods and dynamics, and also sees Cruel Force exploring their more epic side, with three of those songs topping six minutes. No matter the mood or dynamic, though, energy bristles from every second of Dawn of the Axe - riff, rhythm, lead, vocal, Everything - and with the slightly-more-atmospheric recording style (or a more "mysterious" production, perhaps), it all gels together to create the band's strongest and most complete statement to date. No matter how you (axe)slice it, there's no wimping out whatsoever! It's rare for a band to be away a full decade and then come back with their best work, but such is the case with Cruel Force and Dawn of the Axe. There's some strange magick brewing in the Devil's Dungeon, and they've crossed the Styx to bring you that Power Surge!