Psycroptic
Symbols Of Failure

These releases are sure to put anyone who loves extreme music, particularly Brutal Death metal, in a great mood. We are faced with a work that combines excellent quality with a truly massive dose of innovation and personality.
The Australians Psycroptic succeed in this album, more than in their previous works, in fully exploiting their great talents and deliver a work that deserves to be ranked among the best of all time. Although their approach adheres to the standards of the most ferocious Brutal Death, the numerous contaminations, primarily Mathcore, make "Symbols Of Failure" an interesting and captivating listen: starting with the opener "Alpha Breed", an authentic spiral of varied technicalities begins, anything but sterile and insignificant. An abstract guitar riffing from the tradition of the most fundamentalist Death, intricate and fast, mixes with composed tempos where accelerations prevail, but there is also space for slowdowns, never excessively stretched. The bass parts, expertly blended with the rest, complete the work creating a suffocating atmosphere capable of staggering anyone's sanity; needless to say, it is an understatement to define these guys' instrumental technique as excellent.

Their executive prowess can be safely placed alongside that of masters like Cryptopsy and Dying Fetus; these are indeed the groups with which a comparison naturally arises, the former for the use of guitars and the latter for the presence of double vocals and rhythms. Alongside a profound growling, admittedly not very exciting (too muddy and gurgling), there is a higher voice that not infrequently indulges in very powerful screaming. As for the songwriting, influences can be traced, in addition to the aforementioned groups, also in Meshuggah and in some aspects even in Dillinger Escape Plan: the passages are very daring and often there are openings with a strong progressive flavor that can only leave you amazed. The songs are all unbelievably complicated, aided by the speed and continuous guitar scales that, besides proving the skill of the performers, demonstrate Psycroptic's great talent in composition. Indeed, it is perhaps the astonishing creation of such complex and well-fitted arrangements that makes this CD a great work. The Underground scene is indeed crowded with young musicians of exceptional skill who, however, fail to release a personal work due to lack of inspiration in the composition phase. Our guys, on the other hand, demonstrate having a creative vein so fervent that they do not risk falling into mere imitation of the "big names"; the nine songs on this CD are by no means boring, even if they are only assimilable after several listens. The material proposed is indeed extremely rare and impactful.

The production is adequate, clean enough to highlight the virtuosity of all instruments (perhaps a little less the bass) but not so much as to remove expressiveness from the work: even the vocals come out advantaged and manage to be heard in the skillful interweaving of sounds.
The atmosphere is very tense but at the same time strongly evocative and generates more than the cold interest usually felt for such radical works; indeed, it can be said to unleash a real whirlwind of emotions. Adding to this the absence of those horrid carnival lyrics that often ruin works of this genre, one realizes that the mood recreated by Psycroptic is of rare intensity and seriousness.
"Symbols Of Failures" stands a notch above the others both for technique, for the charm of the songs, and for their intricate and unusual structure; a truly disorienting and schizoid work that represents the frontier of extremism.

An album like this cannot but appeal to fans of technical Brutal Death as well as to lovers of the most violent Mathcore: albums of great class and style like this are very rare to hear, a purchase that one cannot regret and that ignites hope for future developments.