PSYCROPTIC

Psycroptic started out playing a relatively brutal type of technical death metal, but they've slowly changed their style over the years towards a more groove oriented techncial death metal style with "core" leanings. The core element is mostly due to Peppiatt's vocal style which ranges from brutal growling to more aggressive core tinged vocals. The instrumental part of the music is groove oriented technical death metal. While listening to the album I pictured what it would sound like if Decapitated and Lamb of God teamed up for a project.

Psycroptic are very skilled performers and while the core tinged vocals is probably an obstacle for some, the execution of the music is really something to behold. These guys can both groove and do it while playing some technically advanced riffs and rhythms. There's an organic atmosphere to the proceedings which is greatly enjoyable, and which is helped further along by the well sounding and for the style rather organic toned production.

The material on the 9 track, 37:45 minutes long album is also relatively varied, and it doesn't take more than a few spins to be able to tell the tracks apart. This is one of the issues I've had with some of Psycroptic's earlier releases, but they've stepped up here, and this self-titled release is overall a really strong effort by Psycroptic. A 4 star (80%) rating isn't all wrong.

The music on the album is technical death metal. If you are familiar with the last couple of albums by the band it'll be no surprise that the band have sneaked in a couple of "core" influences too. It's especially the growling vocals that feature an aggressive "core" edge that more "regular" sounding death metal vocalists don't employ (not completely unlike how the vocal style has changed on "Carnival Is Forever (2011)" by Decapitated). The music contains razor sharp riffs, ultra fast double pedalling, tempo changes and breaks and just a generally high level musicianship. The materiel is well written but it takes time to really tell the tracks apart and hooks begin to appear.

Overall "The Inherited Repression" is a quality technical death metal album and a 3.5 star (70%) rating isn't all wrong.

This liverecord gives a good interpretation how they sound live: they play tight and are convincing. There are constantly new ideas coming and the riffs are full of small melodic lines. The instruments are good dinstinquishable and especially the guitarplaying is very interesting with many short melodies in the mid- and highpitch spectrum. Therefor this is not such a dark experience. This music in constantly interesting, because of the litle repeating of the riffs. The riffs themselves are of high quality.

In many occasions I do prefer grunting/growling instead of clean vocals within the metal genre, because in my opinion metal may be a heavy experience. The grunting is quiet good here with some low growls here and there and soms shouts on other occasions.

This liveperformance of Psycroptic is highly recommended for fans of metal with a highly technical approach.

Or Tasmanian death metal to be more precise. A band who plays a brand of death metal a bit more technical than Cannibal Corpse, but still have a lot of catchy hooks and riffs. There are even some ounces of melodies here. The music has a lot of small intricate details which really makes the songs comes alive. The bass is very steady and there are even a lot of solid guitar harmonies on this album. Some of them even half acoustic. And that integrated in their very technical death metal. Most of the songs are flowing into each other and the listener are not bored with intros and outros which has ruined many good death metal albums during the last twenty years.

This is a good death metal album which is as attractive as fourteen days in bed with plague to those of you who does not like death metal. But death metal fans can safely invest in this album. I am not overly interested in death metal anylonger, but even I recognice the qualities in this album. A good album from a good band.

3 stars

I am not sure what's the difference between an album like Symbols of Failure and a death metal album likes the ones Cannibal Corpse has released. OK, Jason Peppiatt's vocals are more guttural than Corpsegrinder's vocals. But tech wise, Psycroptic is not that much more tech death metal than the gods of death metal.

Symbols of Failure is a fairly straight forward death metal album. The music is pretty good without really being impressive. It is pretty generic with not much of raw and technical edge I expected from this band. In short; Symbols of Failure leaves me underwhelmed.

This album is good but nothing more.

3 stars

I have so far only been listening to their first two albums. Most of the stuff on this live album is from their other studio albums though.

A live gig is always a compromise between renditions of the studio material and the abilities of the musicians. There is things from studio you cannot do live. That's due to the limits of the musicians, the technology or simply that the studio material is too esoteric to be performed live. You soften up, in other words.

Psycroptic is supposed to be an ultra-technical death metal band. Although the songs here is very competently delivered, the supposed uber-technicality is not present here. What remains is a very good death metal live album. But it is pretty standard in the technicallity department. Their supposed best songs are included here and the sound is very good too. There is a couple of comfort breaks here which means this is not a flowing live album. That is my biggest problem with it. But this is a good death metal album which includes everything a death metal fan want and deserve. No less; no more.

3 stars

Thundering fast drumming and bass, crushing guitars and the usual death grunts heralds the return of this Australian band. Everything dressed up in a good sound and with an excellent artwork.

For me, it still sounds like Psycroptic is a work in progress on this, their second album. There is still a lot of three-state death metal in their sound and not that much technical death metal. OK, the music they play is still fiendish difficult to play though. But I had expected a lot more uber-tech death metal. This album is also chemical bereft of some great tunes and hooks. But this is still a good death metal album.

Good, but not great death metal from an album I expected to be a great slab of putrifying meat.

3 stars

The death metal scene in Australia has always lived their own life with a very brutal sound. Sadistic Execution is the prime example. The bands down under has taken the US sound a couple of steps further towards an all out brutality sound.

Psycroptic is among those although this album is not that brutal. It is mired in the tri-state sound which was developed by Suffocation and Immolation back in 1989-90. That's where we find this album. It is not particular technical. It is just brutal death metal with some melodic parts.

I personally quite like this album. It's sound is not the best though and the death metal here is a bit generic. But this is a decent debut album which set the band up for greater things. It is not the first album those who want to check up this band should buy though.

A decent album, nevertheless.

2.5 stars

The band´s usual technical death metal style with brutal growling vocals are still the basis but it´s like they´ve tuned down the technical playing a bit. Don´t get me wrong though this is still very technical music but the emphasis seems to have shifted towards a more modern and groove thrashy sound in addition to the fast death metal basis. This is still first and foremost brutal technical death metal though. The songs are all of equal high quality but I do find the album a bit trivial in the end. It´s hard to put my finger on what´s wrong but I´m only mildy excited after listening to the album.

The musicianship is excellent. Tight and razor sharp playing as usual from this band.

The production is professional, sharp and clean but I´m not really happy about the clinical drum sound. It´s a bit annoying to my ears.

I´ve given this one many spins because I really wanted to like it but I guess I just have to accept the fact that the path Psycroptic have chosen just isn´t the one I had hoped they would follow. This is still a good technical death metal release though and it deserves 3 BIG stars from me. I´m sure other fans of the genre will find this album more appealing than me though because it is a high quality album in terms of songwriting, production and performance.

After listening to Symbols of Failure I can say that I´m relieved to say that Jason Peppiatt is almost as great as Matthew Chalk. Not quite as schizophrenic but really brutal and sneering when that´s needed. Most of the time the vocals are really deep sub woofer growling and you can´t make out a word which is something I normally don´t favour but here it works pretty well. The style of music that Psycroptic plays can be compared to nineties death metal bands like Morbid Angel, Ripping Corpse and especially Suffocation who has to be Psycroptic´s big heroes. This means that Psycroptic´s music is extremely well played and technical death metal and in addition to that style add a bit more tempo changes and unusual song structures and you got Psycroptic. The style hasn´t changed much since The Scepter of the Ancients and that´s the only problem I have with this album. Well there´s the fact that all songs more or less sounds like each other and it takes many listens to seperate them from each other, but that´s a challenge that I´m up for. You won´t find any melodic soloing or clean pop singing here only ultra brutal tech death metal.

The musicinaship is outstanding and like I did in my review of The Scepter of the Ancients I have to mention drummer David Haley for his outstanding skills. Fast and furious playing, but he is rather sophisticated too. Brother Joe Haley has also cooked up some great riffs this time and if you like fast death thrashy riffing look no further.

The production is more polished than the raw sound on The Scepter of the Ancients and I´m biased if that´s a good thing. I think I prefer the more raw sound on The Scepter of the Ancients.

Symbols of Failure isn´t a big step forward like The Scepter of the Ancients was a big step forward from Psycroptic´s debut album The Ilse of Disenchantment, but less will do this time. Symbols of Failure consolidate that Psycroptic is a force to be reckoned with in the tech death metal genre. Symbols of Failure lies somewhere between a 3 and a 4 star rating but as I think that the album is way above average for the genre I´ll give it a 4.