### Crypticus: The rites of infestation

#### 17/01/11 || Daemonomania

Another band from the review that changed so many people’s lives – say hello to Crypticus if you don’t know them already. This formerly one-man crew from Colorado got the international assistance of Floody McFloodhorse (he sure looks cute on their Metal Archives page… awwww) on the drums to churn out a four track EP in honor of All Hallow’s Eve. A death metal band releasing a Halloween album makes a helluva lot more sense than Halford recording a Christmas album, that’s for sure.

Here comes the Yuletide meltdown – run for your lives!

I’m informed by MA again that one song is from an upcoming album, one song is reinvented from a demo, one is exclusive and new, and last but not least I knew “Enter the realm of death” was a Runemagick cover. They certainly picked ze championship Runetune to tackle – without a doubt one of the catchiest crunchy classics ever to grace these ears. Of course the original is superior. Yet Flood’s snazzier skinwork wouldn’t have been out of place circa 1999. No sir.

Standout original track would be “Baron of the dark”, then, by default. The rest is performed capably, my only real complaint being that the riffs are sometimes slightly meh. Oh yeah, and whatever distortion the dude is using on his voice makes him sound appropriately evil. Unfortunately it comes with a distracting, irritating raspy noise. The same thing is true of Acid Witch’s “Witchtanic hellucinations” – I can’t even listen to that fucker anymore on headphones without getting a headache.

You can download the EP absolutely free, so unless you hate Scandinavia worship or are deadly afraid of trees with evil faces, no reason not to give Crypticus a shot. Personally when it comes to B-Team Swedeath I’d rather reach for a Rogga sideproject, but that’s just me. Yep. Review over. Four tracks. Four paragraphs. There is so much clandestine numerology shit going on here that you’d need The Da Vinci Chode to figure it out.

- Information
- Released: 2010
- Label: Razorback, maybe?
- Website: Crypticus MySpace
- Band
- Patrick Bruss: vocals, guitar, bass
- Brynjar Helgetun: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Ceremonial Surgery
- 02. The Hungerer
- 03. Baron of the Dark
- 04. Enter the Realm of Death