Band: Cryptic Shift | Album: Overspace & Supertime | Genre: Progressive metal, Technical thrash metal | Year: 2026
From: Leeds, UK | Label: Metal Blade
For fans of: Vektor, Voivod, Coroner, Atheist
I don’t know what keeps drawing progressive and technical thrash metal bands to outer space, but it seems to be working. Vektor, Droid, Voivod, Obliveon, and plenty of others have plumbed the depths of the night sky for inspiration, and Cryptic Shift continues in this proud tradition. Their 2020 debut, Visitations from Enceladus, is a phenomenal work, with the 25-minute “Moonbelt Immolator” being one of the greatest metal epics of this century.
Their newest release, Overspace & Supertime, is a monumental work, clocking in at nearly 80 minutes over just five songs. Their brand of cosmic, death-tinged thrash is a powerful canvas for their sci-fi storytelling.
“Crygenically Frozen” opens with unsettling clean guitar licks and obvious jazzy overtones. The mood is disorienting and claustrophobic, and the expositional narration is unobtrusive. When the song finally gets going, the riffs interpolate between thrashy palm-muted passages and broader moments of clean tones. The band does an excellent job at balancing some of their jazzy inclinations amidst extended passages of biting, metallic fury.
The nearly-30-minute “Stratocumulus Evergaol” follows, again leading with askew-sounding clean guitar, swirling about in a confusing fog. Everything is murky and indistinct in this opening passage, effectively evoking the titular clouds. The harshness increases gradually, swelling and ebbing over the first few minutes. There are some interesting ideas and textures here, but after a while, it does feel like they’re belaboring things a bit.
When Cryptic Shift finally kicks things into high gear, it’s exhilarating. The riffs are adrenaline-pumping and dazzlingly complex, and I love all the subtle flourishes the bassist gets in beneath it all. The different sub-sections of this opus flow together smoothly. Different riffs morph and evolve, sometimes abruptly and sometimes smoothly, but it always feels intentional. There’s a clear dramatic arc to this work, with moments of smothering chaos as well as wide-open adventure.
The band also knows when to give the listener some breathing room, sprinkling in occasional clean breaks. This contrast is essential to keeping the song flowing. And as much as I like this piece, I’m not really sure structuring it as one 30-minute piece makes the most sense. There were a few natural lulls where splitting this piece may have made the record a bit more wieldy.
“Hyperspace Topography” gets right into things, with energetic riffs bursting forth. Chords and scales are unusual, and jazz-tinted adornments add a lot of depth. The band dives into some wonderfully crazy instrumental experiments in the midsection of this song. Guitars squeal and skitter and roar, and the rhythm is constantly unsettled and unpredictable. Rhythmic weirdness continues on “Hexagonal Eyes (Diverity Trepaphymphasyzm)”, and I again really appreciate their more unusual instrumental experiments. This song’s second half sees Cryptic Shift play around a lot with clean guitar tones and some stripped-back atmospheres.
I just glossed over two songs and 20 minutes of music in relatively few words, and that highlights a recurring pattern on this record for me. There is a lot of music here, and it is mostly very good, but I find it oddly tough to write about. There are only so many ways to say “there are a lot of cool, technical riffs, and everything fits together really well.”
Overspace & Supertime closes on its 20-minute title track. Cryptic Shift channels Cynic in the opening passage, with vast-sounding, echoing clean guitar lines and ample jazz touches. When the metal returns, the riffs are crazy and inventive, and the band’s bassist puts on an especially strong show. After the first verse, there are some spooky, theremin-like synth tones that gel well with this band’s sci-fi themes.
As elsewhere on this album, the band also knows when to break things up. Moments of abstract distortion and noise occasionally crop up, and moments of gentleness and more overt sci-fi tones also help to keep things interesting. Near the middle of this epic, there is an extended passage where things become quite ethereal, and I really enjoyed hearing the band be more restrained. This epic’s final movement is filled with as much gravity as one would expect. Jittery riffs wriggle their way up and down the guitarists’ fretboards. Unusual chords ring out and add a sense of majesty and grandiosity.
Cryptic Shift’s new record is a massive, ambitious work, and it is mostly a resounding success. It is very rare for a record with an average song length north of 15 minutes to not have some bloat or excess, but everything here is structured wonderfully. The band also has a good sense for when it would be prudent to add some sonic contrasts, especially in a genre as tonally-limited as thrash metal often can be.
Score: 85/100
The Elite Extremophile 