To struggle is human, and the attached emotions can get the most of us if we are too overwhelmed and are not armed with the tools to help manage the forces keeping us down. That’s especially the case if your struggles are mental because there is so much suffering in silence, and still too little understanding from people who think we should suck it up. If only it was that easy.

While not outright acting as a trip through mental health woes, Brazilian death metal destroyers Crypta paint a lot of pictures about those struggles on their great new record “Shades of Sorrow,” their second. You can hear the snarled words, follow along with the lyrics, and just absorb the darkness in their music to know there are harrowing topics here, plights we all face, and in order to prevent them from taking over our lives, we must find ways to cope, heal, and eventually fight. The band—vocalist/bassist Fernanda Lira, guitarists Jéssica di Falchi and Tainá Bergamaschi, drummer Luana Dametto—is a total beast live (I got to see them on Easter night as they opened for Morbid Angel, and they scorched), and that comes across on this record (as well as their awesome debut “Echoes of the Soul”). Their creativity is evident as is the fire and blood they put into their music, and if you’re someone who’s also struggling, these songs can act as battle anthems to help you rise above the disarray.

“The Aftermath” opens with piano drizzling, an intro track that increases the drama as it goes, fading with fevered breaths. “Dark Clouds” unleashes with a mix of growls and shrieks, acoustics helping cut into the chaos, and pummeling hell raining down. “The invisible enemy is creeping in, darkness steadily surrounding me,” Lira howls as the leads blaze, and the final assault buries you in mental shrapnel. “Poisonous Apathy” crushes, Lira’s cries rippling, and even the breezier melodies can’t totally cut down on the pain. The chorus gushes, then the soloing fires up, melody and savagery intertwine and ensnare you in their trap, Lira wailing, “Drifting away!” “The Outsider” feels doomy and hazy at the start, the leads acting as a muscular spine through the middle. The feel is thrashy and grimy, the basslines flex and increase the swaggering power, and everything is torched, ashes coating the ground. “Stronghold” swirls in and feels deadly immediately, crushing with a melodic glaze, eventually going cold and increasing the moodiness. Colors blaze but also trickle, and everything bursts anew, delivering both haze and chaos, everything coming to a blurry finish. “The Other Side of Anger” brings tense guitars and deep growls from Lira as she wails, “I am the sadness with nowhere to go, I am the passion denied for so long.” The force drubs, and the chorus is wrenching, leading to the guitar work blazing a new, harrowing path before heavy glaze makes your vision blurry, and the track blasts out.

“The Limbo” is an interlude with pianos warping, slowly melting and draining, mesmerizing before “Trial of Traitors” tears in, chewing out guts with sharpened teeth. The plastering force leaves brush burns on the flesh while the soloing stings, the assault renews, and growls utterly destroy, crashing out with drums turning everything to soot. “Lullaby for the Forsaken” opens with reflective hums, and then the assault catches fire, ominous tones making the atmosphere even darker, the screams sending sharp chills down your spine. “Understanding denied, the loyalty I need lies only within me,” Lira howls as soloing melts, the shrieks rain down nails and spikes, and the ferocity wells and floods your mind with destruction. “Agents of Chaos” is humidity as it dawns, and then it begins to grind pretty hard, the playing getting steamier, energetic bursts making your blood flow. “I celebrate I’m not in your skin, I avenge by pitying your misery,” Lira jabs as the guitars make the temperatures dangerously high, standing on the gas pedal as it screeches to a halt. “Lift the Blindfold” begins with a clean stream before the muscular push mangles, slashing through righteous devastation, the chorus absolutely killing. “How much I failed myself, how much I questioned myself, now I shall stand for myself,” Lira declares amid fast, melodic bloodshed, landing heavy blows and ending this campaign in molten blackness. “Lord of Ruins” is icy and chugging as it starts before the fuel is aggravated, and incredible melodic guitar work makes adrenaline spike. The playing envelopes while wild howls jab into ribs, the soloing makes a blinding surge, and a total assault creates a final burst toward outright victory. “The Closure” is a book-ending interlude, bringing foggy, strange sentiment that ends this journey through mental turbulence.

Crypta are a force to behold, both on record and live, and “Shades of Sorrow” is a great building block for this band as they continue to make passionate sounds that just rip off your face. The band is made up of inventive, incredibly sharp players, and they are just getting their foundation to solidify, which two awesome albums will help make impossible to destroy. This is an exciting record, one that tackles the darkest of tidings, the most morbid of emotions, and comes out swinging, defiant to conquer the odds and leave negative forces burnt to a crisp.

For more on the band, go here: https://www.facebook.com/cryptadeath

To buy the album (U.S./Canada), go here: https://www.napalmrecordsamerica.com/

Or here (rest of the word): https://napalmrecords.com/

For more on the label, go here: https://label.napalmrecords.com/