I once said that Finland is a bastion for Metal and can give us seemingly anything, and that it has done again. Today I present KRYPT's second full length album "Remnants of Expansion," a brutal album of Death/Doom Metal full of chugging riffs and mixing a gradual sense of impending doom with suffocating death metal wrapped in unholy riffs, endless drums, and some rather good gutturals. Clocking in at 32:58, it is by no means the longest album, but what it does contain can be rather dense and is very much worth the 33 minutes. However, it can easily be the type of album that is either well-loved or slightly disliked, or as well as it can received mixed feeling and polarizing opinions. That as well as the fact that it does not seem to be the most inspired or inventive piece, but it is also by no means the most generic. "Remnants of Expansion" walks a higher road of creativity, but not the highest. For those who enjoy doom/death metal though, this is not an album that you should not leave unheard.

Opening with "Arrows of Entropy", it begins with a slow and gradual buildup. The main thing worth noting about the opening is the fact that it kind of overstays it's welcome, definitely feeling like it drags on a bit long (helping to attribute to "Arrow of Entropy"s long run time of eleven minutes). However, once the song starts to kick up you get to feel the heavy, bass intense, chugging and suffocating riffs that hardly let up and are what make the album the brutal beauty it is. It still however contains its riffs that evoke a sense of dread and impending doom that are featured a few times in the song barring the opening. My main complaint for the song as a whole is that, while it contains some great riffs that are brutal and fear inducing, the song overstays its welcome a bit and does feel to drag on. Following that is "The Withering Titan", and this song certainly does not want to give you a chance to breath. While its opening still retains the gloom that KRYPTS includes, as soon as the build-up ends the song does not give you more than a few seconds at a time to catch your breath. Featuring a great riff and brutal drums, this song is definitely worth a listen. What holds it back from being a top song is the fact the album is so short and that every song is great in some way.

By comparison, "Remnants of Expansion" is far slower and more melancholic. It is a short purely instrumental track that does well in capturing the doom side of this album, as a whole not bad but not super noteworthy. Beyond this is "Entrailed by the Breaking Wheel", which goes back to the other end of the spectrum that "The Withering Titan" was part of. However, by comparison it gives a more continuous melancholic Doom riff between two crushing riffs that are what I find the heaviest on the album. Finally the album closes with "Transfixed". While the other songs would transition between heavy riffs and moments where they slow down and let you breathe, "Transfixed" better combines the two. Gradual chugging riffs that display a sort of apex of doom/death metal, though it is still interlaced with pure suffocating riffs. The song itself does not seem to stop building up as the closer to the end you get, the more chaotic and dissonant the song becomes until the very final moments. It is hard to pick a favorite overall, but "Transfixed" is easily a contender.

I once had someone tell me that "The more obscure a Death Metal band is, the more the band wants to make you suffocate on its sound". KRYPTS is a prime example of this. All throughout there was a glorious supply of riffs and beats that could kill and seemed to make the very air heavier. Of course this is just exaggeration but this album is still a great listen for any fan of Doom/Death Metal or brutal and dread inducing Death Metal in general. KRYPTS has certainly turned out to be a band I look forward to hearing more from.