Edge of Sanity
Cryptic


2.0
poor

Review

by metalhead2425 USER (15 Reviews)
June 24th, 2019 | 14 replies


Release Date: 1997 | Tracklist

Review Summary: A lifeless effort from a band on their last legs.

For the average metalhead, Edge of Sanity is a household name. A legendary death metal band from Finspång, Sweden that many regard as one of the best progressive death metal bands of all time alongside genre heavyweights such as Death and Gorguts. After the release of what many consider to be the band’s defining work, Crimson, a single 40 minute long progressive metal epic that redefined what death metal music was capable of, creative differences began to arise in the band between the band’s lead vocalist and songwriter Dan Swanö, who wanted to go even further into progressive metal territory, and the rest of the band who wanted to return to the band’s raw death metal roots. This tension resulted in the release of the confused and disjointed Infernal as well as Swanö’s departure from the band. While it would seem that the band got exactly what they wanted, Cryptic does not feel inspired in the slightest and is easily the worst album in the entire Edge of Sanity catalogue.

Released a mere 9 months after Infernal , Cryptic is a rushed, boring mess of an album that tests the listener’s patience with every second of its duration. Right from the get go, the listener is hit with some of the most generic riffs in the entire death metal genre. The album opener “Hell Written” begins immediately with a tremolo picked guitar riff that is passable, albeit fairly generic, before going into some forgettable chugs and repeating the same riff again afterwards. This formula loops for about two minutes before the song turns into what sounds like hard rock. This section lasts for the remainder of the song until the ending brings the opening riff back. On paper this doesn’t sound that bad, and in practice it really isn’t. It’s passable stuff. Problems arise however when the listener realizes that “Hell Written” is the best song on the entire album. From track two onward is where the album really gets painful.

Like the bands previous effort, Cryptic is stylistically confused throughout its entire duration. At times, the album attempts to incorporate death n’ roll influences into the songwriting, taking inspiration from bands such as Entombed. While it can be executed correctly in some cases (Entombed), death n’ roll bands are often bland and uninspired and, on Cryptic , Edge of Sanity is no exception. The riffs on tracks such as “Uncontroll Me” (great spelling) and “Dead I Walk”, for example, are unbelievably stale due to their failed attempts to be groovy. The standard death metal riffs on the album, while slightly better, are still boring to the point of tears, often sounding like a D-grade “swedeath” tribute band. While none of it is absolutely unlistenable, one could just as easily pick up a classic album such as Left Hand Path or Dark Recollections and forget that this album ever even existed in the first place.

Songwriting aside, the individual performances on Cryptic are not awful, but they are far from what this band is capable of. In order to fill Dan Swanö’s spot as the lead vocalist in the band, Andreas Axelsson decided to hire Roberth Karlsson of Pan.Thy.Monium and much later, Scar Symmetry fame as lead vocalist. His vocals here are at a much higher register than they were in Pan.Thy.Monium, and as a result, aren’t as devastating, however for the most part they are decent despite the fact that they lack any sort of character. The guitar work on the album is, of course, handled by ex-Marduk vocalist Andreas Axelsson and Sami Nerberg who played on all previous Edge of Sanity releases. I hate to keep saying this, but dull and generic is the best way to describe their performances on the album. None of the guitar riffs are particularly complex or memorable so their guitar playing, while passable, completely flies by the listener leaving no impact whatsoever. The bass, performed by Anders Lindberg, is almost completely inaudible throughout the album and the drumming, performed by Benny Larsson is simplistic and utterly forgettable.

In the end, Cryptic is not just a bad Edge of Sanity album, but also one of the most cliched, phoned-in death metal albums of all time. There is nothing even remotely interesting that happens over the course of the album’s duration. For fans of the band, the album could be interesting to hear the band at their weakest point before they inevitably broke up in 1999, but for the average metalhead looking for a quality death metal album, stay far away from Cryptic .



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user ratings (199)
2.5
average

Comments:Add a Comment 
metalhead2425
June 24th 2019


390 Comments

Album Rating: 2.0

Got bored so I decided to try my hand at a negative review. Hopefully it turned out well. As always, if there are any errors let me know.

blou52
June 24th 2019


341 Comments

Album Rating: 2.0

The only error is that you listened to this at all

metalhead2425
June 24th 2019


390 Comments

Album Rating: 2.0

You mean made you listen to it with me?

blou52
June 24th 2019


341 Comments

Album Rating: 2.0

NO COMMENT

metalhead2425
June 26th 2019


390 Comments

Album Rating: 2.0

Has no one else heard this?

blou52
June 26th 2019


341 Comments

Album Rating: 2.0

Maybe people are trying to forget this exists

metalhead2425
June 26th 2019


390 Comments

Album Rating: 2.0

That or they have enough sense not to listen to it in the first place.

TheSonomaDude
June 26th 2019


9194 Comments


finally this album got a review

metalhead2425
June 27th 2019


390 Comments

Album Rating: 2.0

Yeah I always thought it was odd that it didn't have one.

parksungjoon
September 14th 2021


47231 Comments

Album Rating: 1.5

Uncontroll Me is a pathetic tune

metalphil
March 5th 2024


889 Comments


I'm not super into this band but I just feel sad when I look at their discog ratings here. It's like good/great album after album then this dumpster fired just dropped in randomly, followed up by another classic album

metalhead2425
March 19th 2024


390 Comments

Album Rating: 2.0

Yeah it is because Dan Swanö had very little to do with the previous album and nothing to do with this one. The rest of the band wanted to drop the prog stuff and return to being OSDM, but (obviously) it didn't work out for them.

Flugmorph
March 19th 2024


34844 Comments

Album Rating: 3.5

brilliant album, an alltime classic.

Flugmorph
June 18th 2024


34844 Comments

Album Rating: 3.5

this is better than infernal



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