Review by Felix on March 31, 2025.

If the train is going in the wrong direction, every station is wrong. This saying is attributed to Otto von Bismarck, the founder of the German Empire in 1871, but it is still valid 150 years later and a band that changes from pure to progressive thrash could, in my view, be on the wrong train. Fortunately, the Ex-Distillator guys manage to give the listener the good feeling that the train is not going completely wrong. Their debut under the banner of Cryptosis was rebellious, excessive and impulsive. Celestial Death also has a lot of strong moments and its production fits the musical approach. Although it sounds a bit polished, the album does not lack aggression and directness. Moreover, the bass guitar, what rare luck, does not get lost in the sound. Maybe the drums should have get a more prominent position, but at the end of the day, I am speaking about a professional mix without any severe shortcomings.

"Faceless Matters", the first regular track, could be described as a more or less pure thrasher, only (depending on the deception of the listener) diluted or enriched by some atmospheric keyboards which do not rob the song of its energy. The band does not reach the level of insanity that dominated the whirlwind compositions on the final split under the old name, but the song does not lack speed, dynamic and coherence. However, the (slightly) reduced degree of lunacy shimmers through all pieces. It is okay that the band gets more and more mature as long as the guys do not lose their songwriting skills and a basic power. Yes, sometimes I miss a higher dose of grim ruthlessness, but on the other hand I appreciate the broad soundscape in some songs. It's a balancing act between thrashing combativeness and intellectual-technical attitude. Sometimes the band manages this challenge very cleverly, but in a few moments, the wrong direction of the train cannot be fully ignored. "Absent Presence", for example, is a solid-to-good song whose beginning reminds me a bit of Burzum's (!) slow yet hypnotizing songs, but its comparatively calm arrangement makes me miss the fury of the trio's old day. "Static Horizon" is another track with an affinity for elements foreign to thrash metal due to an almost meditative instrumental part at its ending. However, generally speaking the material of Celestial Death houses still straight, wild and vehement parts. Blast beats are not forbidden in "Cryptosphere", to give just one example. Nevertheless, the melodic parts seem to be in the focus of the guys during the song-writing process and I can confirm that they have a fine instinct for these sequences.

The vocals of Laurens Houvast is fighting against the danger that the full-length could leave a too soft impression. Despite the fact that he cleverly swings back and forth between snarling-aggressive and relatively normal shouting, his voice sounds always raw and non-conform. Given this, the few bombastic and rather inappropriately pathetic elements (for example in "Reign Of Infinity") fail to characterize the output and that's good. Flattening guitars and machine gun drums, not only at the beginning of the angry and extrovert "In Between Realities", have the last word on an album with a lot of musical force, but little weak spots as well. It would be too simple to say that the keyboards deliver the "celestial" elements and the guitars bring "death". The interplay of the individual instruments is just right, but one could do without boring, meaningless and synthetic intermezzos like "Motionless Balance" and the acceptable yet pretty powerless conclusion in the form of "Coda / Wander Into The Light" an instrumental, doesn't add any value to the album either. Whatever the case, maybe I'll get off this train soon. But the moment hasn't come yet.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Review by Michael on February 27, 2025.

I always liked some sort of science fiction storytelling in metal like Nocturnus or Vektor did in their music. Since 2021 is another band active that is telling some (dystopian) sci-fi stuff in their songs, namely Cryptosis. Originally formed as Distillator (under that name they released two full-length albums before they changed name) you can clearly notice some remarkable changes in their style. Was Distillator some kind of baby Yoda already foreseeing his technical powers in the music, but still some kind of old-school thrash metal, Cryptosis have turned out into an adult Yoda with all his wisdom, knowing of all tragedies that will happen and these furious energies that he can unleash if necessary – and obviously it is quite often very necessary.

What has quite obviously changed are the now often frequented synthesizers that give the album a quite cinematic science fiction atmosphere. In every song you can find more or less epic synthesizers that underline this futuristic atmosphere very well. Although it sometimes is doubtful if the use of them is helpful, in the case of Celestial Death it truly is. Compared to its predecessor Bionic Swarm the Dutchs have increased the tempo so that there aren't too many slow or mid-tempo parts to find any more.

Another change are Laurens' vocals that sound even more aggressive than before. This matches really well to the often used tremolo-picked-stuffed songs that (which could already be foreseen on the Silent Call-EP) sometimes tend more to black metal and that peppers the music with a lot of grimness.

Of course Cryptosis don't go black metal really, and if you have ever seen the guys live you will know for sure that they leave nothing to chance. The technical skills of these three musicians are really stunning and everything works like a Swiss clockwork. The drumming is always super-well timed and I guess that there isn't a millisecond delay between the guitar / bass lines, vocals and the drums.

Something else that has changed is that they don't refer too much to some dissonant Voivod-like riffing but focus more on some traditional heavy metal riffs like in "Ascending". This makes it much easier to get access to the tracks and lets the album appear more out of one single casting. Personally I like it very much (okay, I never got into Voivod honestly) and maybe this is an approach to get more people listening to Cryptosis.

I would treat it to them because there are a lot of really awesome tracks to find. "Cryptosphere", "Ascension" or "Static Horizon" are hyperfast technical thrash bombs like the Enterprise on warp 10. Celestial Death is truly a masterpiece when it comes to an innovative fusion between the ferocity and brutality of classic thrash metal and requirements that are necessary to play super technical music.

But just like every super hero, also Yoda needs some rest and for this, we can listen to some calmer instrumentals like "Motionless Balance" or the outro "Coda – Wander Into The Light". Coda, hopefully not for Yoda (or in this case Cryptosis).

Rating: 8.5 out of 10