An ominous meeting of an illuminant sorceress and an intrepid explorer under orange and teal-shaded mammatus-cloaked skies deigns to transcend dimensional barriers as Leeds, England-based progressive death/thrash metal quartet CRYPTIC SHIFT return from the beyond with a mammoth sophomore full-length album. A giga-codex molded from thrash-obsessed technician hands and classicist prog-death imbued skulls ‘Overspace & Supertime‘ pushes beyond the normative collage typically made of these elements and instead crams every moment with wickedly fluid yet confrontational narrative device which meets the moment with absurd kinetic capabilities alight. For the ailing ‘old school’ death, tech-thrash, and fusion-pressed progressive metal trained ear there is a whole-ass novel’s worth of interest here, a celestially summoned nuke upon a number of wilting zeitgeist which is yet double the size/scope of (but not unrelated to) the bands already impressive debut.

In the works for years on some level via vocalist/guitarist Alexander Bradley and drummer Ryan Sheperson via a few different configurations Cryptic Shift officially established their path circa 2015 as bassist John Riley joined and their sound faced rapid evolutionary change. Although earlier demos had referenced science fiction themes and Atheist inspired progressive/technical death metal style the band’s earliest work was yet notably heavier rooted in high-functioning thrash metal ’til then. The EP to follow (‘Beyond the Celestial Realms‘, 2016) began their tread upon increasingly prog-death shaped exploration, transforming their material much in the way Teleport (Slovenia) had over a similar span of time.

The big break for Cryptic Shift came with their Blood Harvest released debut LP (‘Visitations from Enceladus‘, 2020) as a watershed reveal of their potential beyond “retro” revisional idealism into a wildly kinetic fusion of technical thrash metal and ‘old school’ progressive death metal. Upon review I’d described the effect in classicist-meets-revivalist terms: “Think of ‘A Vision of Misery’ were it elevated to Vektor ‘Terminal Redux’ levels of blustering advent but sharing equal time between spider-legged thrashing and astral death metal highs.” before placing it at #12 on a stacked Top 100 Albums of 2020 list. For roughly six years skulls were riding high off that record but there’d been no rush toward what was next, a real rarity in today’s attention-deficit reality, as they’d toured, signed with Metal Blade, and grabbed Joss Farrington of Seprevation on second guitar in the interim. The only comparable level of patience and road-readiness in this realm of the last decade is maybe the similar major label trajectory of ‘Absolute Elsewhere‘.

‘Overspace & Supertime‘ is essentially Cryptic Shift at double the magnitude of ‘Visitations from Enceladus‘, an ~80 minute double LP which nurtures their inherent sub-genre crossfade while building out its skeleton into an enormous, heady sci-fi concept album. At this new level of intensity it’d be fair to broaden their core tag to progressive death metal which is neither removed from highest ‘old school’ standards nor as overtly referential of technical thrash metal in tone as before, they’ve branched out in terms of expressive indulgence and interruptus. Through this work the quartet’ve unsheathed an elaborate, freely flowing argument for their autonomy in this context, their own authorship of the prog-death/tech-thrash (re: “astrodeath”) mindshare. What this means in practical terms is more than a mastery of tropes but a strong individual voice(s) in fusion sure to vex and thrill in equal measure.

You’ll feel this double-gauge’d expansion, presented as an alternate dimensional refraction of the previous album’s setting, on the outset as ‘Overspace & Supertime‘ reveals its densely populated register via pieces ranging from ~9 minutes to a half hour. Opener “Cryogenically Frozen” slings back a few mid-70’s jazz fusion/prog rock informed runs on the float in while distant spoken word and finger picked Cynic-isms generate an ominous scene as the blast doors are opened and this loosened, warped version of Cryptic Shift stretches their introduction beyond the three minute mark with an unpredictable jam. The tension built is brilliant in that it reveals no greater predictive arc into the barrage of riffcraft beyond, dropping the ear directly into a grinding set of technical fusion-scattered riff runs fit for fifth-gen ‘Piece of Time‘ inspired fare (see: ~5:26 minutes in.) This is only a taste of the band’s increasingly extreme function, a flexing of the always-active galaxy mindful barrage of quicksand movement serving every moment of the full listen.

For the sake of achieving an evenly spread four-sided experience Side A pulls the first ~five minutes of the ~29.5 minute “Stratocumulus Evergaol” and labels it as Part A of the piece though it actually contains six distinct (named) movements. The wide berth of the song presents an album within an album, a tightly packed nigh LP-length narrative within one heinous globule not unlike what Cryptic Shift‘d achieved with “Moonbelt Immolator” on the previous album. This should be the piece to flatten the listener into submission, overwhelm their senses/attention span, or at least convince keenest ears to take a seat in front of the harried brutal-prog level cinema provided by ‘Overspace & Supertime‘. Several highlights spark up, too many to count even, as frequent transitions and breakaway float create both dark and light shading for the larger illustration at hand. One of the more striking interruptions hits around the sixth minute arrival where a neothrashing crush-out whips toward a riff which (to me) recalls a specific hit from crossover thrashers Excel in how it plays out. I particularly love how the bass guitar swells around this otherwise very late 80’s codified moment and Bradley‘s vocals take on a snarling, almost Eastern bloc tech-thrash inspired cadence. You’ll find John Tardy worthy snarls, StarGazer-worthy tempo-built finesse, post-hardcore inflected shout-along spikes, and harrowing dark ambient swells interspersed which help to built this song into its own self contained grand arc.

With so much more album ahead, a full forty minutes shared between Sides C and D, and all of it retaining or excelling beyond the first half’s showing it’d be impossible to not get stun-locked by the moment to moment barrage Cryptic Shift have packed into ‘Overspace & Supertime‘. With that said I did feel like “Hyperspace Topography” allows for some breathing room, one of the more late 2010’s Vektor feeling strands to twist and unravel herein. It also gives plenty enough room to shred and you’ll find some of my favorite leads on the album tucked into its many recesses. While I don’t know that the start of Side C “makes” the album experience outright it does contrast well with the far more confrontational, ‘experimental’ and moderne edge of lead single “Hexagonal Eyes (Diverity Trepaphyphasyzm)“, likely the one piece here to outdo the riffcraft found on opener “Cryogenically Frozen”. This is the peak of the album for my own taste and the most compelling argument for the band’s own sound and vision beyond reference, it anchors the sprawling cadre achieved.

As it turns out “Hexagonal Eyes” likewise compels within its narrative revelations wherein I won’t spoil the connection to the prior LP but will praise the “twist” available to this piece as well as the general world-building available to this album. Though I won’t suggest I’ve had enough time to decipher my own meaning from this work I will say that most of the lyrics here read as combination of hyper technical 80’s pulp novel characterization (poetic human observance vs. computational command) beside lore a private Eve Online server would appreciate. The language used becomes increasingly symbolic (re: 70’s sci-fi authors pulling from ancient literature/mythos) as elements of temporal disturbance enter the realm or whenever larger systems/craft etc. are represented. There is some joy felt in piecing together each scene while also noting that the guitar solos on the lyric sheet not only denote the player but also bear their unique title in representation, for example Mike Browning‘s (Nocturnus) theremin solo on closer/title track “Overspace & Supertime” is designated as “Thrashing, thrashing against millions of teeth”. A small window into the details which lie faceted beyond the face value overwhelm of the music itself. There’ll be no questioning where all the work was done over the expanse of ~six years leading up to this album’s release.

Much like any mind-bending science fiction novel or video game the choice to fixate on any given number of details in description should overwhelm when the quality is there. That’d be a fair reaction then, a daunting point of immersion from a ‘progressive’ metal album which creates a stymying effect, demanding patient digestion and repeated listening. It’d have all been a scratched-up mess sans the retro-futuristic apropos production values offered by longtime producer/engineer Jack Helliwell + mastering from Greg Chandler @ Priory Studios who’ve collectively managed to contain but not over-shade such a dark yet spastic opus. Sound design as well as visual design feat. artwork from Jesse Jacobi (re: the last Tomb Mold cover, Norco) help to reinforce the vision into greatness and steer ‘Overspace & Overtime‘ away from the last minute/”whatever’s cheapest” treatment sci-fi themed extreme metal typically receives in terms of curation. The collective result is a covetable item, a tome one could pour over for months per its audiovisual resonances.

“Today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured…” from thin air to the point that the unreal projections and provocations afforded the future-sighted dreams of long dead men wholly resemble the reality of today only I believe they’d (most all) under-served the horror of it all coming quick as it has. In tasking themselves with telling an unreal story within an enormously ambitious sophomore LP Cryptic Shift haven’t set aside the ungainly roots they’d borne of, ensuring the terror and wonderment of their navigation beyond reality still resembles canon-burnt authenticity and even fandom in subtle regard. While their work yet resembles the “bigger, better, more” tendency of a second album in this case all that has been poured into every second of their work shows, needling the wary mind with scintillating sounds and surrealistic prose which ejects the mind from its cavernlike oppression into an inspired state. You won’t know the whole of it without putting in a bit of work yourself, taking the time to absorb the kinetic charge of their actions and the words applied, and in this way ‘Overspace & Overtime‘ enriches far beyond the status quo. Highest possible recommendation.

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