Back in the early 90's when technical Death Metal started taking from with key albums from bands such as DEATH, CRYPTOPSY and OBSCURA it was clear that the music was made in this technical fashion to serve the message these bands were bringing about and to emphasize emotion. It seems that in recent years many bands forgot what being a tech Death Metal band is all about, crafting riffs that are technical just for the sake of showing off and that are devoid of any meaning or emotion and a result the genre has been in decline for the better part of a decade now. So when I tuned in to PSYCROPTIC's new album without to many expectations in mind a wide spread smile smeared itself across my face upon hearing the very first song, I already heard two albums by this band and I reckoned they were very good though they didn't blow me away personally. But this one is simply everything a technical Death Metal album ought to be in my opinion, and from every aspect it is clear that PSYCROPTIC simply isn't just your ordinary tech Death band. First of all I would like to mention that like in many truly great bands this band is a product of the brotherhood between guitarist Jon Haley and the drummer Dave Haley and they are the main reason for the brilliance of this album. Jon's guitar riffs are quite highly technical but they are made in a way that only empowers the music instead of making it sound tiring and they present pretty unique ideas that demonstrate a really "out of the box" kind of thinking and a truly experimental spirit regarding sound.

The other big piece of the puzzle as I've already said is Dave Haley's drum work which is simply insane! He is clearly one of the most oiled drum machines out there and he has incredibly creative ideas that are the other major key element in the band's color. The vocal work is also highly notable in this album, most tech Death Metal bands are characterized by monotonic vocalists who can only perform Death grunts and unlike them PSYCROPTIC's vocalist Jason Peppiatt is a very versatile singer who masters a wide range of techniques thus further contributing to the dynamic and free vibe this album has.

Song structure is also a very fluid concept for PSYCROPTIC but they never exaggerateto the point where songs sound as if they have no clear direction which is the downfall of many bands. I also liked the fact that they never go crazy with unnecessary song lengths and all songs end when they should. Sound production also hit the spot for me, it is very modern sounding and balanced, the only thing that gets swallowed a little is the bass but it's like that in most Metal productions. To be honest, the only disadvantage in this album in my opinion is that I found it hard to stay hooked on it from start to finish and I usually stopped listening to it in its midst and picked up on it later on but beyond that it is a great album and the approach it presents is exemplary for other bands in the genre.