CRYPTOSIS

METROPOOL HERTOG JAN ZAAL, ENSCHEDE

When Dutch thrashers Distillator rebranded as Cryptosis in 2020 after seven years and two – released just a month before – take on a new physicality in the live setting thanks to weeks of intensive rehearsals that have seen the band essentially rebuild the record from the ground up. Early thrashers and take off like a jet engine, showing that the old-school motor the band used as Distillator hasn’t been entirely scrapped. But when the band take their foot off the pedal things take off, with elements of prog, symphonic and black metal trickling in to augment their sound. The MVP award surely goes to sound engineer Olaf Skoreng for perfectly balancing the band’s many disparate elements. Be it the spooling bass and techno-prog approach of that bears shades of Voivod, the Dimmu Borgir-ish grandiose symphonic black metal of or even the Tom Araya-esque howl that brings it all home on , Cryptosis emerge from their debut live performance as an exciting, enthralling new force in cosmically tinged progressive thrash.