Remnants of Expansion

Transitioning more into the realms of doom/death as compared to the more straightforward death metal on “Unending Degradation,” Krypt’s second album merges the pulverizing gloom of their first album with a much more developed sound, sharpened and solidified like dagger-point stalactites. The album is certainly a step up from the band’s first release, and provides not only a deathly atmosphere that seals the listener in Krypt’s starless miasma, but some highly effective compositions that avoid the relative monotony of their previous work.

The fusion of doom metal and death metal on this album is effective and at its best crushing, especially considering that the great strength of Krypts’ previous releases was their penchant for atmospherics. This is immediately clear from “Arrow of Entropy,” a song that traverses a variety of soundscapes but lurks primarily in the desolation of its haunting, wailing sustains and skull-splitting tom-driven sections. The churning, suffocating guitar work of “The Withering Titan” is reminiscent in the best possible way to contemporaries like Ritual Necromancy or Grave Miasma, and the greater focus on the band’s doomy components allows these moments of roiling death metal fury to truly shine. The drumming on this album is some of its most powerful instrumentation, with a great deal of variety characterizing the percussion on this album. The slow, pounding beat that opens this release is a commanding, primordial smolder, while other points of the album showcase a strong grasp of faster beats and seething double-kicks. The bass rumbles animal-like over and under the guitars, and is striking feature of Krypts’ sound that I am glad to see has remained an important component of the music. A particularly striking portion of the album is its title track: the opening is a sparse, throbbing sustain that unexpectedly devolves into an eerie clean guitar, morphing afterwards into a poisonous, drudging beat that eventually fades into oblivion – a truly great interlude before splitting the listener’s spine with the staccato opening to “Entrailed to the Breaking Wheel.” While “Transfixed” is not the strongest closer, the album is well-paced and each song offers something distinct to this release.

The vocals on the album are a captivating element of its sound – an admirably clear, unhallowed, throaty roar that does not necessarily vary in tone very much but occasionally raises the song’s malevolence to a greater pitch, such as at the roughly midway point of "Withering Titan." This especially is a sign of the development of Krypts’ sound, with the instruments working together and playing across each other in a way that makes the impact of the compositions on “Remnants” a truly violent force. “Remnants of Expansion” is a solid foray into the realms of death/doom, and the band’s excellent attention to crafting an atmosphere bloom in this diseased soil. Far superior to their debut, the cohesion of all instruments and the cavernous vocal performance make for a monstrous piece whose unholy aura is worth returning to. While it is not composed of entirely unforgettable material, the album’s combination of dingy gloom and at-times pulverizing vehemence is certainly appealing, and is a welcome evolution of their sound.


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