17 Aug 2016

Cryptodira: "Recursions"


A mixed bag of tricks...
To shake things up, Long Island-quartet Cryptodira have spiced up their brand of progressive metal with trace elements of many different styles and genres. Their second EP, Recursions from January 2013, impresses with a surprisingly professional sound to present their music.


Recursions starts out with a roar of modernised death metal with machine gun drumming, hardcore-inspired vocals and heavy riffing and melodic melodies over a semi-polyrhythmic rhythmsection. Continuing with further melodic tendencies, Either Fly or Fall Faster leads in a direction of pleasent harmonies untouched by the previous track. Right up until the last minute of that track their performance is convincing, but the combined polyrhythms of the bass and the drums together with the inane shouting of the vocalist comes off as annoying.

"Cryptodira seem to favour the melodic approach to the heavy counterpart,"

The rest of the EP follows with a mix of tracks that vary approach while still staying true to the band's sound. Cryptodira seem to favour the melodic approach to the heavy counterpart, but the two are neatly intertwined throughout each of Recursion's compositions.

The Long Island band in general seem to be a bit too worried about fitting in with the crowd of djent, metalcore and progressive bands, but still want to be a death metal band at heart. Recursions comes off as a collection of compositions that are split in personality and character, even if they all fit within the same neat category that Cryptodira have defined for themselves.

A few tracks have parts that positively stand out, but these passages are quickly overshadowed by the way the band weirdly couble them together in ways that seem counterintuitive. As such the group lacks songwriting experience.

6/10


Released in 2013 independently

Links

No comments:

Post a Comment