Five years after the release of their high-concept sophomore album The Angel of History via GoodFight Music and after two self-released singles, Long Island progressive mathcore outfit Cryptodira have joined Silent Pendulum Records to unveil their newest EP, Genesis of Error.
“There’s no love, There’s no love. There’s a cell with no windows” shrieks guitarist and vocalist Scott Acquavella on opening track ‘No Monuments’, kicking the doors open into the next fifteen minutes of meticulously crafted chaos, where the distinction between progressive metal and mathcore becomes blurred.
The band’s efficient use of dual vocals also immediately comes into play as other guitarist and vocalist Mike Monaco counter-balances Scott’s raspy shrieks with low gutturals and clean vocals during melodic passages.
Cryptodira‘s ability to shift between frantic chaos and more introspective proggy parts is not only agile, but very often results in successfully retaining the listener’s curiosity and surprising them with how they choose to manoeuvre the composition’s trajectory. Almost inevitably, comparisons with Between The Buried And Me can be drawn, especially as the outro to ‘No Monuments’ brings to mind some of Colors‘s finest moments, but to their credit, they are one of the few bands that are able to bring BTBAM to mind both compositionally and in execution while still very much doing their own thing.
‘The Same River Twice’ is a full-on, all gas and no brakes short-fused mathcore rager cleverly sandwiched in between the EP’s two lengthier tracks that evokes some of Every Time I Die‘s more chaotic moments with an added progressive death metal dimension.
Eponymous closer ‘Genesis of Error’ which almost reaches the ten-minute mark is perhaps unsurprisingly the proggiest track of the project. It sees the band display more “classic” prog influences such as some King Crimson inspired clean layered riffage or Tool reminiscent bass tones provided by bassist Vincent Romanelli and polyrythmic chugs that slowly build up towards a satisfying crescendo of tension release with the intricate organic percussions commanded by drummer Matthew Taibi guiding the flow of it all.
Photo Credit: Sean Ageman
While the same level of ambitious conceptual scope that was present on their sophomore LP The Angel of History would be impossible to replicate within the space of a mere quarter of an hour, Cryptodira efficiently manage their time to present not only the multi-faceted musical complexity they are capable of but also their desire to observe upon societal matters and philosophical questions with sufficient depth of thought.
In this case, Genesis of Error mostly seems to deal with the overwhelming ongoing violence of senseless conflicts and their horrifying future legacies and current repercussions (“Another hospital bombed” – ‘The Same River Twice’) from Palestine to Ukraine and beyond, as well as the privatisation of natural resources by the ultra-rich, echoing back to previous single ‘Hyperwealth”, and the severe pollution affecting our planet as a result of unsustainable models of industry.
The only real downside to this EP is, well, that it’s an EP given how bands like Cryptodira benefit and thrive from having more space to sprawl out their vision and bring it to life more fully over lengthier projects, but does wanting more of a good thing really count as a true downside?
Genesis Of Error is out now via Silent Pendulum Records