A raw and melodic record: Review of Crypta’s “Shades of Sorrow”

The new Brazilian death metal band Crypta‘s album was released on August 4th. You can find it in the record stores and listen to it on music platforms. Surely, this album, the second of their career, seems to be more mature and consistent than the first album.

You can see the difference in the composition of the songs. For example the using of a piano on the intro, the interlude and the outro, but even more arpeggios that sound like Sepultura‘s works, or create a lot of melodic lines, with bass, drums and voice to get all scratchy as the eagle’s claws.

All of this let us know how these four girls have grown up musically. Not only beat hard as the genre wants, but also to be quiet and harmonious.

Yes, maybe it’s not enough for saying it definitely, but it can be a new beginning for the band. For sure, this album it’s raw and melodic at the same time. The constant Fernanda Lira’s unclean voices, who is able to alternate growl and scream, and the writing of musical parts, we can say they had a lot of inspirations for making this record. You can note some shades of Scandinavian melodic riffs and solos which try to be inspired by the technical death metal music, but even black metal stuff.

It’s obvious that the sound of the album it’s always dark and gloomy. The fast way of play of the girls throws you in a claustrophobic room with no way out, no windows, no doors. Just you and the eerie presence, as the cover art wants to remind us too.

Clearly, the Brazilian quartet can only get to improve for the next works. The Crypta‘s purpose is to propose old death metal school style in a modern way, and they are succeeding in that.