Cryptic Shift – Overspace & Supertime
Release Date: 27th February 2026
Label: Metal Blade Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Technical Thrash, Progressive Thrash, Death Metal.
FFO: Vektor, Droid, Voivod, Dissimulator.
Review By: Aeons Burning
Stardate 2451: I’m lost in the Andromeda Galaxy. The sounds of the debut Cryptic Shift record Visitations from Enceladus are my only way forward, guiding me to the unknown horizon only known as Overspace & Supertime. I charge the Moonbelt Immolator superweapon on my starship and prepare the final jump to the next set of decoded coordinates. When I arrive, there’s nothing but blackness, until a greater ship emerges from the nearby nebula. I hail the ship, and it turns out it’s none other than Cryptic Shift themselves, and my transmission is upgraded to current frequencies, with the same goal of reaching Overspace & Supertime.
Phasers shift into overdrive as I take the first leg of the journey to find someone Cryogenically Frozen, and I know I’m on the right track as the frequencies here sound eerily similar to the original Moonbelt Immolator frequencies back when I made my initial voyage all those eons ago. NASA said there was no sound in space, but they’re a bunch of morons, because I hear faint sounds of insane riffage in a local cluster of asteroids. I steer my ship to where the sounds are coming from, and I’m greeted by a behemoth of a space station, ominously titled the Stratocumulus Evergaol.
I’m wandering the labyrinthine pathways of the Evergaol, admiring the progged-out Voivod-ian sounds emanating from every porous passage, and I’m coming to a stark realization that these transmissions sound even better than the originals way back when. Where I thought the Visitations from Enceladus somno-transmissions were indecipherable and maze-like, these are even more so. Still, I press on, because Cryptic Shift themselves wrote the sounds that emanate, and I dare not disobey my orders. I come to where the original coordinates say, and instead of a person, I find a detailed Hyperspace Topography that requires greater thinking to decode what it means and where to proceed.
Everything has sounded nigh-perfect so far, and I eventually find myself pursued by the enemy known only as Hexagonal Eyes. I’m forced to pilot evasive maneuvers as I avoid the phaser bursts that are synced perfectly with the tones on here. Then I realize my cockpit has been poisoned with Diverity Trepaphynphasyzm, and it’s a rush to expertly pilot my ship in time to the unbelievably technical writing with these sounds before I’m shot down and destroyed. Just when I think it’s too late, I reach my final jump point, and when I exit the hyperlane, I’m staring at the incomprehensible anomaly only known as Overspace & Supertime.
I write these final passages and say to any prospective traveler to trust in the sounds Cryptic Shift have made and follow where they lead. Overspace & Supertime is the best cosmological thrash record since Vektor’s Terminal Redux nearly ten years ago, and it’s an insanely addicting album that will destroy any end of year lists. No one is doing thrash better than Cryptic Shift in this day and age, and it’s on you to take these transmissions and follow them, because the journey of wildly technical prog thrash will be worth every one of the monumental 80 minutes this record demands from you. If anything is going to top this for me, it will be an insane feat, because this is damn near perfect. I cannot recommend Cryptic Shift enough, and I only hope whatever comes next is even more insane. End log.
(4.5 / 5)
