It’s natural for trends to bleed into music as subgenres grow, warp, and reformulate, changing a sound largely based on events that preceded more recently. It’s made for some really inventive music, but it also can be just as refreshing when it seems no time has passed at all, and the music you’re experiencing feels like it thrives in no progress.

That’s admittedly a kind of shitty way to talk about death metal crushers Cryptual, but it’s a total positive when I say their style of music feels like it missed every evolution since the early 1990s. That’s by design as the band—vocalist Paul Ellis, guitarists Tony Capodilupo and Brad O’Malley, bassist Jimmy Palmer, drummer Kevin Stenseth—formed because a bunch of Milwaukee dudes wanted to get together to play classic death metal, and on their debut full-length “Convulsing Above the Ground,” they serve up a smoking serving of the good stuff. Over seven tracks and 25 minutes, Cryptual send up a sharp, perfectly portioned beating that gets in, does ample damage, and leaves blood and bone behind.

“A Painful Grace” opens in complete demolition, growls buried beneath the carnage, trudging with power. The guitars blaze with fury, the pace stomping and destroying, the heat consuming everything whole. “Muted Liturgy” delivers infernal smashing, howls ripping, and a monstrous fury having its way. The leads char as a melodic sweep takes hold, speed and ferocity combining to become a major factor, total decimation driving to an abrupt end. “Never Born Again” crunches and chugs, vicious leads going off and tangling around your neck like a cord. The playing then goes off, bubbling like a molten stream, the growls curdling as the band thrashes harder, scorching to the end. “Rotten Inside” has leads swinging and the growls mangling, setting into a throttling pace that mashes. Growls batter as the speed becomes a greater force, the guitars stinging as the playing grows brutally catchy, burning into ash.

“Self-Inflicted” trudges and injects heavy violence musically, the path feeling muddy and jagged, functioning like a battering ram opening up holes in the earth. A ferocious force rips from its center, the guitars adding more heat to an already steamy pile, ending in vile chaos. “The Walls Melt” has leads that scorch flesh, the power bleeding and blasting, the playing battering completely. The temperatures spike as the soloing takes control and lathers with madness, a fast, jarring attack coming at the end that buries you in dust. Closer “Thrall” attacks, monstrous force blowing through walls, melodic, yet flattening playing aiming to take down buildings. An ungodly blast detonates, twisting through volcanic madness, guitars taking over and rampaging to the end.

There’s no need for a fluffy ending here or some kind of philosophical meanderings because Cryptual ravage with old school-informed death metal that will utterly torch you with melody. “Convulsing Above the Ground” is slim and trim from a timing standpoint but utterly hellacious as a full package, a record that will make your blood pump and your body ache. This is a motherfucker of an album, one that should get Cryptual a lot more attention and adulation after they skewer you alive.

For more on the band, go here: https://cryptualdeath.bandcamp.com/

To buy the album, go here: https://www.ironfortressrecords.com/collections/all-iron-fortress-products

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