I vividly remember the time when the musical spectrum changed due to some unexpected pairings in genres. It was quite a revelation when PESTILENCE released their fusion of Death Metal and Jazz on their 1993 album "Spheres".  A few months later this was followed up by CYNIC with their debut album "Focus". It was something new and exciting, and when they did their tour together, I went to see them in the Noorderligt venue Tilburg (NL). It was a beautiful night and the music was exciting, fresh, new and most of mesmerizing. Then, a few years later, in 1999 to be exact, we got the DEATH frontman Chuck Schuldiner who brought us a combination of Death Metal and Progressive Metal with his band CONTROL DENIED on the equally impressive album "The Fragile Art Of Existence". Unfortunately the only one of those three that kept on mixing their multiple musical influences was CYNIC. PESTILENCE became more of a Technical Death Metal band, while CONTROL DENIED never released a second album. Alas.

But hey, now I've found CRYPTIC SHIFT on their second album "Overspace & Supertime", which was released on 27 February 2026. They even have the courage to mix Death Metal with Jazz and Progressive Metal, whilst not being afraid to add a bit of Heavy Metal or even Thrash Metal when the mood strikes. Even though there are only five songs, the duration of the album is 1:22:26 hours. The opening track "Cryogenically Frozen" happens to be the shortest song being at 9:49 minutes, whilst "Hyperspace Topography" is by far the longest at 30:46 minutes. And if you're asking about structure, well, if you know you're Jazz, you know that it is of a very loose structure. You therefore will be treated with a variation that spans from spacy Jazzy sounds, through all the other influences up and until very fast double bass Death Metal. The one constant throughout this whole process are the vocals of Xander Bradley, as they mainly exist of grunts and growls. You will hear some clean(er) voices being used, but that is just sporadic.

The most important thing for me is the fact that I have no choice but to be amazed, enthralled and totally enamoured with what CRYPTIC SHIFT is presenting me with on "Overspace & Supertime". To me this all sounds absolutely superb, has all the elements that make me crave to hear more of CRYPTIC SHIFT; excitement, surprise, attraction and superb musicianship. Plus a knack in making all these strange influences and musical genres fit together in the most impressive way. To me, this is musical perfection. I now need to hear the 2020 debut album "Visitations From Enceladus", just to see how it compares.