Got my fucking BEAUTIFUL red vinyl copy of Cryptworm's new masterpiece. Does NOT get much better than this. 2026 AOTY contender for me, of course.

#metal #DeathMetal #vinyl #Cryptworm #2026Albums #2026Records #Bristol #BristolMetal #UKMetal #UKBands @wendigo @HailsandAles

#ThursDeath this week is new LP 'Infectious Pathological Waste' the almighty CRYPTWORM from Bristol, UK just released. The cover is gross/gory, so attached here is an image of the red vinyl that I have ordered and is on the way to me now. WHAT a record.

https://cryptworm.bandcamp.com/album/infectious-pathological-waste

Cryptworm are one of my favorite metal bands, and this is my AOTY for 2026 so far. Gonna be tough for something to beat it. Nasty, thick, killer production and riffs.

#metal #DeathMetal #Bristol #UKBands #UKMetal #Cryptworm #2026Albums #2026Records #riffs @HailsandAles @wendigo @guffo @rtw @swampgas @c0m4 @nnenov @AlfeeDee @pephorror @umrk @Kitty @flockofnazguls

UK disgusting death metal fiends Cryptworm have been quite prolific since 2022. Featuring members of Cryptic Shift and Rothadas, their Spewing Mephitic Putridity debut was a nauseating dose of raw sewagecore that made Autopsy seem hygienic by comparison. They followed that up barely a year later with Oozing Radioactive Vomition, and things felt a bit rushed and less impactful. They wisely took some time off thereafter, and now they return with third outing, Infectious Pathological Waste. While their overall approach hasn’t changed much from album to album, the quality of the writing has varied. This time, it feels like they put a bit more thought into the compositions, and some of the vile charm of the debut resurfaces through the slime and scuzz. Nothing does the heart good quite like seeing a happy Cryptworm!

Opener “Gallons of Molten Hominal Goo” greets you like a decaying old friend, and the gruesome, repulsive sounds contain the distinct aroma of early Carcass. This lump of excrement could have appeared on Symphonies of Sickness and fit like a maggot in a gunshot wound. The riffs are fairly rudimentary but have weight, and the vocals by Hanyi Tibor (Rothadas) are a cross between an industrial garbage disposal and a frat-house beer-belching contest. They are fucking disgusting, purulent, and utterly incomprehensible, but damn if they aren’t entertaining. “Maimed and Gutted” is a standout, going for a frantic thrashy panic attack with Cannibal Corpse-isms buried in the basement. It’s a road-grader of a brutal death song that veers into slam territory at times, and the riffs are greasy, sticky, and bellicose. My favorite macabre ditty is “Embedded with Parasitic Larvae,” where, intentionally or not, Tibor sounds like an undead version of the Swedish Chef from The Muppet Show. I cannot tell you why this enhances my enjoyment as much as it does, but fuck yes, Chef!

Infectious Pathological Waste by Cryptworm

On “Drowning in Purulent Excrementia,” they go extra slammy, and kitman Jamie Wintle starts to hit something that should be the pong snare, but it sounds like he’s beating on a skull or a femur. It’s weird, but I kinda like it, and it’s way better than that godawful PONG-PONG-PONG sound some tech and slam bands foist on you. Not every track is a sure-fire hit though, with “Gastrointestinal Seepage” feeling a bit too leaden and lethargic, though I appreciate Tibor’s extra nasty vocals where he seems to be coughing up a hairball full of razor blades and asbestos. I could complain that this feels like a very one-note album, but what death metal album isn’t really? At a tight 32 minutes, it goes by fast enough, though several tracks do have bloat issues that crimp enjoyment. The style Cryptworm opt to play necessitates keeping things in a 3-4 minute window, and when they push further, things get ropey and dopey.

Tibor does a tremendous, unpleasant job on vocals, sounding completely inhuman at all times. His unbelievably cartoonish subterranean croaks are a thing of hideous beauty, and I can’t get enough of them. His guitarwork is also to be applauded, borrowing the most objectionable bits of gristle from Autopsy, Cannibal Corpse, and Incantation to fuel the Cryptworm diet. Some of the leads are quite hooky, and I especially love the big beefy power chugs that dot the landscape. As on Oozing Radioactive Vomition, however, the songwriting can be inconsistent, and they don’t always know when enough is enough. There are some sick burners here to aggravate the savage altered beast, but a few tracks feel underbaked and deliver weaker tentacle slaps.

Cryptworm are a band I can’t help but root for as I root around in their repellant leavings, but I want them to be MOAR consistently deadly with their offal hammer. There’s plenty of fun stuff on Infectious Pathological Waste to marinate in, and it all reeks of the slaughterhouse. When it’s good, it’s rurl good. When it’s just okay, it’s still pretty fookin’ entertaining. Someday these chaps are gonna get their maggot larvae in a row and then, watch out! Until then, there are worse ways to kill brain cells than these odious odes to the grave.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Me Saco Un Ojo
Websites: cryptworm.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/cryptworm | instagram.com/cryptwormofficial
Releases Worldwide: March 27th, 2026

With the same swirling whammy lick opening “Moonbelt Immolator” gracing the opening minute of “Cryogenically Frozen,” Cryptic Shift have returned. Visitations from Enceladus was a monolithic record that rocked my world in 2020, taking me to the most vile reaches of the universe in a technical death/thrash expedition of cosmic horror. Six years later, the group from Leeds, UK aim to expand on their already expansive debut regarding both their sci-fi theming and musicality with their sophomore. They didn’t skimp out on us either: Overspace & Supertime is one track greater than Visitations and nearly twice as long, boasting two twenty-plus-minute epics.1 A feature film’s runtime of borderline avant-garde extreme metal is no small feat, but if designed and shaped with singular vision, patience and skill, then anything can happen. And in the strange aeons Cryptic Shift occupy, anything happens all the time.

An undertaking like Overspace & Supertime demands top-notch performances to survive: Cryptic Shift couldn’t have done much better. Keeping true to the mix of Atheistic death, Vektorian thrash, and King Crimsonian progressive sensibilities that made the debut a knockout, Cryptic Shift have opened another wormhole of technical death/thrash immensity. But if you’re imagining Visitations II: Eldritch Boogaloo, stop. Overspace takes what made Visitations great and kicks it into warp speed. The guitar duo of Xander Bradley and Joss Farrington (Cryptworm)2 tear through an embarrassment of mind-bending, neck-breaking riffs across Overspace, bending across their whole fretboards, soloing on “Stratocumulus Evergaol” and putting their entire asses behind the chugged-up “Hyperspace Topography.” Drummer Ryan Sheperson pummels his kit in time I can only guess at on “Overspace & Supertime” while bassist John Riley fretlessly glides over “Cryogenically Frozen” into solos traded off between the guitars, amounting to a finessed, yet relentless attack. Topped off with Bradley’s cavernous bellows, Overspace & Supertime is a tour de force of musical expertise.

Overspace & Supertime by Cryptic Shift

What carries Cryptic Shift’s longform songwriting is that their music is always in flux. Whenever the band seems lost in their own prog-sauce—like in the effect-heavy openings of “Hexagonal Eyes (Diverity Trepaphymphasyzm)” and “Cryogenically Frozen”—they always swing back with a bruiser riff that helps keep Overspace more approachable than it ought to be. Like on Visitations, Cryptic Shift employ clean guitar passages and eerie atmospheres to outline the heavy bits. But on Overspace, they are woven smoothly into the distorted parts to create dynamic passages, like the shimmering clean strums between monstrous death hits on “Stratocumulus Evergaol” or the blackened surf-rock tremolos of “Hyperspace Topography.” But Cryptic Shift’s greatest dynamic on Overspace is that of light vs. dark. While their debut was a pitch-black exploration of space-born horrors, Overspace injects a healthy dosage of awe into their mix, including strangely bright conclusions to “Cryogenically Frozen” and “Overspace & Supertime” and a passage at ~16 minutes into “Stratocumulus Evergaol” that’s so boppy that it could pass for Rise Against. It’s in the name: Cryptic Shift change in some strange ways over the course of Overspace & Supertime, and I’m here for it.

And this leads me to the true wonder of Overspace & Supertime and where its immensity is most benefited: the beauty of the off-kilter. This is an album of purely aggressive, dissonant, esoteric, and oddly-timed stuff; Cryptic Shift made no obvious move, and they’re clearly not gunning for radio play. So why is it so beautiful? Solos that effortlessly slide from Slayer-like chromatic bullshittery into soaring melodicism. Patient ambiances both tranquil and unsettling, belligerent thrashing as exhilarating as it is hostile. The brilliant production best described by Dolphin Whisperer as “tone porn,” where all cleans are crystalline, and everything dirty is disgusting. How easy it is to fall under Cryptic Shift’s spell and let the freeform journey take you on its many twists and turns. The fact that Overspace & Supertime gets weird and takes its precious time doing so allows the listener to immerse themselves in Cryptic Shift’s world, making for a simply sublime experience.

In retrospect, Visitations from Enceladus feels like Cryptic Shift’s proof-of-concept for Overspace & Supertime. Yes, this is an exhausting record. Trying to catch everything on it during your first listen could make you go blind. Maybe 80 minutes is too damn long. But Overspace & Supertime is a better record than my wildest expectations, six years in the making, ever dreamed up. Like Frank Zappa at his best, Cryptic Shift on Overspace left me frequently confused, sometimes just plain tickled, but never unmoved before their showcase of the bizarre and the otherwordly. In the stranger aeons Cryptic Shift occupy, anything has happened.

Rating: Excellent
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps MP3
Label: Metal Blade Records
Websites: cryptic-shift.bandcamp | facebook.com/crypticshift
Releases Worldwide: February 27, 2026

Fathomless Ritual – Hymns for the Lesser Gods Review

By Ferox

One develops a strange relationship with the concept of “accessibility” in this gig. Take Fathomless Ritual’s debut Hymns for the Lesser Gods. This slab of murky death metal plunges you right into the maelstrom with furious opening track “Hecatomb for an Unending Madness.” The rest of the album is full of riffs that land like an oddly shaped object dropped from a third-story window: they bounce around unpredictably, and if you’re not careful they might just hit you in the face. My point is, no one will play Hymns for the Lesser Gods as the soundtrack to a spin class. Why, then, does the phrase “like a more accessible Demilich” recur in my listening notes? B. Dean, who does everything here, draws a deep lungful of inspiration from the Finnish pioneers of the weird. He then sweetens up their sound with a never-ending blitz of catchy riffs and the strategic application of groove. Is Fathomless Ritual onto something here, or are we wandering in the wilds of Tribcore?

That which challenged us yesterday becomes today’s canon. B. Dean seems to understand that the collective metal audience has long since digested the off-kilter innovations of Demilich’s Nespithe. Fathomless Ritual breaks no new ground here, content rather to deliver a fleet and exhilarating tour of what are now the tropes of a certain subsect of Olde-School Death. B. Dean’s penchant for groove asserts itself early on tracks like “Exiled to the Lower Catacombs” and “Gorge of the Nameless.” Hymns for the Lesser Gods boasts enough variety to keep things entertaining throughout its forty-minute span. A winding lead guitar line that doubles the central riff invigorates “Grafted to the Chambers of Mirth;” the amazingly titled “Wielding the Bone Wand” boasts ever-transmuting riffs and is the best song on the set. Dean’s vocals, which live somewhere between a burp and a growl, are mostly just background noise, and he could have used another ear to handle the undistinguished production. Still and all, fans of the genre should happily burp along to these Hymns.

B. Dean’s other projects (Pukewraith, Fumes, etc.) have yet to rawdog my earholes, but he acquits himself well as a songwriter. The album roars out of the gate, builds momentum with the aforementioned right-left combo of “Exiled to the Lower Catacombs” and “Gorge of the Nameless,” and never relinquishes its grip. The longer pieces here (“Gifts for Aranaku” and “Grafted to the Chambers of Mirth”) sometimes feel like Fathomless Ritual is running the same playbook to diminished effect, but the songs are packed with enough variety to keep things generally spry. Hymns for the Lesser Gods’ rollicking run-through genre tropes recalls the reliably infectious Cryptworm. Little here to tax or challenge, but hints of a guiding vision do pop up and there’s plenty to keep your knuckles dragging along for forty minutes.

Hymns for the Lesser Gods sets its own ceiling, then does a decent job hovering near the apex of its ambitions. B. Dean’s mixing and mastering is a consistent drag on his own songwriting. It’s not disastrous, but there’s a nagging sense that these songs could be showcased more effectively. My ear had to root around in the mix to find the riffs. This sort of murk used to be part of the fun of committing yourself to metal fandom. Fortunately, technology has brought us a long way, and Fathomless Ritual’s production is not to modern standards. The vocals share in the shortfall. Here as elsewhere, B. Dean owes an obvious debt to Antti Boman of Demilich. But where he energizes the music with some new ideas, Dean’s gutturals land as perfunctory.

The one-man act obviously affords a creator the opportunity to port their musical vision right into your ears. Fathomless Ritual knows what it’s going for, and they deliver an enjoyable debut that I’ll spin again. Hopefully, B. Dean will find someone to challenge him in the right ways on future efforts. Until then, Hymns for the Lesser Gods is a solid slab of death metal that’s unlikely to engage you much past the length of its run-time.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Transcending Obscurity
Websites: fathomlessritual.bandcamp.com | instagram.com/fathomlessritual
Releases Worldwide: March 1, 2024

#2024 #30 #CanadianMetal #Cryptworm #DeathMetal #Demilich #FathomlessRitual #HymnsForTheLesserGods #Mar24 #TranscendingObscurity

Cryptworm – Oozing Radioactive Vomition Review

By Steel Druhm

Cryptworm’s 2022 Spewing Mephitic Putridity debut completely satisfied my shameful desires for a death metal album sounding like someone vomiting gut slime and mega-maggots for 33 minutes. It was repulsive, obnoxious, stupid, and fun. It was also really heavy, borrowing key chapters from Autopsy and early Carcass. I go back to it regularly, so the UK-based blokes did something right. Now hot on the heels of this grisly triumph, we get a brand new splatter platter called Oozing Radioactive Vomition, featuring cover art depicting a pack of n00bs having their first AMG promo sump excursion. They’re so cute! There have been some changes at Camp Crypt since last time, and instead of operating as a gruesome twosome, now it’s Tibor Hanyi with a new bassist and drummer in support. You know these tomb moldy fucks haven’t evolved in the scant time between releases, so you can expect more of the same bloody glop and scuzzy gunk heard last time, full of moist and pasty sub-sub-basement vocals and heavy caveman grooves thick enough to resist tank munitions. But can you rely on this to meet your intrinsic vomitcore needs?

The same things that made Spewing so refreshing are still interred here. Tibor’s insane death croaks and gurgles are still a total blast and since he’s completely incomprehensible, sometimes he sounds like the Swedish Chef from The Muppet Show, and that’s just awesome. The opening title track is d-beaty, dumb, and fugly, with a loud, pongy snare that will annoy the fook outta most normal music lovers. People like us will love it though, along with the borderline slam tendencies, and wish they played this kind of stuff at the local mall and in office elevators. Huge chugs and fat, greasy grooves proliferate and over the top of it all lays Tibor’s repellant and infectious death gibberish. It’s a winning recipe here as it was on the debut. That said, the song feels like it runs too long at 5:45. This becomes a theme across Oozing, with every track in the 5-6 minute window. “Organ Snatcher” does quite a bit with its extended runtime, dabbling in Autopsy murder smut and Carcass gore with a jaunty, upbeat energy that makes the nastiness seem ironic, but it too feels too long in the end. “Necrophagous” fares fairly well despite the elongated lifespan, with a relentlessly vile, disgusting vibe full of slithering leads, bunker-busting grooves, and scuzzy, wet vocals.

The tendency to stretch out these highly toxic concoctions doesn’t work in the album’s favor. No selection is bad, but some tracks suffer more for their bloat than others, and nearly every cut feels like it should end before it finally does. At a slim 35 minutes, Oozing feels longer than it should due to the bloat, and that diminishes some good and very good death metal moments. The writing feels more formulaic this time as well, with certain tropes reoccurring across different tracks, giving the album a bit of a one-note vibe. The drum sound is another issue, with the snare set to “Pong Master Series.” It will work for some way more than others. Ultimately, it’s the combination of poor editing and homogenous writing that limits the impact Oozing has, though it remains an entertainingly raucous dose of Neanderthal death metal dipped in fresh poo-crust.

As with the last album, Tibor Hanyi absolutely kills it as a death metal vocalist, providing some of the most godawful, garbage disposal-esque vocalizing you’ll hear this year. I can’t get enough of his “trash monster with Covid” style and hearing him regurgitate his guts makes me smile every time. He’s more than a capable guitarist as well and there are some notably cool, sticky riffs splashed across the album. He has a real knack for sick grooves and mammoth chugs and these serve the material well. It does seem like he fell back on generic d-beat leads too often this time though, making the songs bleed together into soupy shit-Jello. New drummer Jamie Wintle (Seprevation) does a fine job despite the merciless pong assault and he lays in some interesting fills and rolls amid the chugging and brutish d-beating.

I had some misgivings seeing a new Cryptworm platter so soon after the last one, and maybe the rush to follow up Spewing is why Oozing Radioactive Vomition feels less impactful. Still, I love what Cryptworm are all about so I’ll have a goodly amount of fun with this regardless. You will too if you’re a cellar-dwelling death metal scum leech. Test your Worm tolerance and self-diagnose immediately.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Me Saco Un Ojo
Websites: cryptworm.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/cryptworm
Releases Worldwide: December 15th, 2023

#2023 #30 #Autopsy #Carcass #Cryptworm #DeathMetal #Dec23 #MeSacoUnOjoRecords #OoozingRadioactiveVomition #Review #Reviews #SpewingMephiticPutridity #UKMetal