Bio

The hour is upon us. Get ready for the second chapter of Cryptosis!

In a metal scene brimming with talent, Dutch heavyweights Cryptosis stood out like a shining diamond from the very start. Commencing their reign of cerebral terror back in 2020, this most distinctive and inventive of metal power trios sent shockwaves through the scene with their monstrous 2021 debut album Bionic Swarm. A raging cyclone of highly evolved extreme metal, it showcased the band’s dystopian vision, introducing the exhilarating sound of three ingenious virtuosos, and standing proudly apart from prevailing trends. Cryptosis remains determined to follow their chosen path, and in 2025, they return with a phenomenal sophomore record, Celestial Death.

“We wrote a lot of different material. We had so many ideas, which eventually ended up on a slightly different path – a more cinematic path, I would say. This new record has a much darker atmosphere.” says bassist Frank te Riet.

“We learned a lot from our debut album. The biggest lesson we learned was how to create songs that really come together as complete pieces, rather than just combining riffs,” says singer/guitarist Laurens Houvast.

Celestial Death was recorded at Utrecht’s Studio Moon Music, with Olaf Skoreng manning the controls, mixed by Fredrik Folkare at Chrome Studios and mastered by Tony Lindgren, Fascination Street Studios both in Stockholm, Sweden. Significantly, the blistering technicality and space-age menace that informed Bionic Swarm has been amplified tenfold this time around. While their debut was a concept album, Celestial Death is a more nuanced and complex affair, with lyrics that draw a red line between the horrors of the present day and the limitless chaos of the future. Eliran Kantor masterfully translated the auditory soundscapes into a visual masterpiece for the cover art.

“We had a clear vision,” adds te Riet. “The team behind the scenes was the same as it was for Bionic Swarm. It was produced by exactly the same people, we used the same studio, the same engineers, the same band members. It was about our new vision that we wanted to put on the record. Bionic Swarm sounded more mechanical, because it fit so well with the lyrics and the overall concept. But on this album, we have more personal stories in the lyrics, and we wanted to reflect that. You can hear Marco’s (drummer Marco Prij) style of playing this time, and that was tucked away a little bit on the debut album. We want to show the diversity of the band. We all have different interests and influences, and we wanted to give that as big a platform as we could.”

An exercise in creative defiance, Celestial Death maintains Cryptosis’ core policy of making epic music that refuses to be pigeonholed. From the neck-wrecking intensity of opener Faceless Matter and the triumphant fury of Static Horizon, to vivid and venomous finale Cryptosphere, the Dutchmen’s second full-length is a sustained revelation. The songs are sharper, tighter and imbued with a powerful sense of skewed melody; the production is vast and destructive, but laudably organic and meticulously detailed. Everything that made Bionic Swarm so compelling has mutated and been magnified, and the band are ecstatic with the results. Underpinned by elements of black, death and thrash metal, combined with orchestral compositions, they have produced a sound that has no precedents in modern heavy music. New songs like Ascending and In Between Realities offer a box-fresh new metal hybrid, performed with furious skill and unwavering passion. This is melodic black/death metal taken to the next level.

An epoch-shattering force with endless potential, Cryptosis returns in 2025 with a new perspective, an enhanced sound, and a profound sense of urgency. The Dutchmen are ready to make every riff, beat and scream count. Celestial Death is a game-changer. The future has returned, and nothing can stop it. Cryptosis have bloomed into a fascinating proposition, and Celestial Death is their refreshed manifesto.