Sean McLennan

Disclaimer: This article uses scientific terminology solely to express how absurdly sick Cryptic Shift and their new album ‘Overspace & Supertime’ are. Do not attempt to dissect or make any actual scientific conclusions based on the sentences that follow. 

Back in 2020, as COVID-19 swept across the Earth, intergalactic death thrashers Cryptic Shift triggered a cosmic eruption in the metal underground with their debut full-length, Visitations From Enceladus. Outside of a couple EPs and single releases since forming back in 2011, this was Cryptic Shift’s first fully realized work where they completely leveled listeners with their sheer songwriting capabilities, instrumental creativity, and sonic storytelling, earning them widespread praise within the heavy metal realm. 

Continuing the voyage beyond their four-way split, Chasm of Aeons, with Inoculation, Replicant, and Astral Tomb, Cryptic Shift inked a deal with the almighty Metal Blade Records. This drove them to transform what would have been their next EP, into the near-80-minute epic that is their newest achievement, Overspace & Supertime. 

“We’re following a road map that was created years ago for an entire saga; it’s like following a movie screenplay,” shares Cryptic Shift vocalist and guitarist Xander Bradley. “Many riffs, tonalities, lengths, dissonances, dynamics, etc., are set in stone for particular chapters in the story.” 

Expanding on how the band’s mind-blowing songs come together, drummer Ryan Sheperson shares, “Xander has the basic narrative of the album thought out, and then we break that down into chapters, which become the songs and working titles. As for the music, either Xander and I will jam on something, and he will look to find a place in the story for the idea to work, or he comes to me with an idea already, and we play around with it. The track builds from there. The layering and sound effect stuff comes later on in the process, when everything is more mapped out.” 

Bradley adds, “I usually map out a structure of the song first so that we’re not just writing random stuff for the sake of it; everything in the end will have its right place.” 

Twists and turns through astral projection, evil dimensions, incredible battles, and narrowly escaping through what Bradley refers to as an “unstable time-wound,” the character being followed in their single “Cosmic Dreams” and Visitations From Enceladus, “physically, mentally, and spiritually splits into two: The Amnesiac and The Recaller, who both are blasted back in time,” he further details. 

Bradley continues, “On Overspace & Supertime, we focus on the subsequent adventures of The Recaller. Both bodies emerge from the time-wound at more or less the same point in time and actually unknowingly cross paths and visit the same locations and battles – offering an alternate perspective on this album. The Amnesiac has no memory of the cosmic dreams, but awakens with incredible powers, The Recaller is the opposite by remembering everything but is mortal.” 

The album’s immersive opening depicts The Recaller emerging from that time‑wound and crashing into a toxic geothermal pool, all brought to life by field recordings gathered by Bradley and the band. 

“We gathered a bunch of recordings for the sound design on the ship’s descent and crash. I recorded water from a local marsh swirling around to get a sense of the craft sinking into the toxic pool. At home, I threw metallic items at each other for the clunky metal ship slamming into rock and then got some analogue devices pressing buttons for control system warnings. Then we recorded voiceovers like a movie sound track with a script and everything for a rescue team that finds her crashed ship and recovers her body, you can hear that in the intro and later clean section,” explains Bradley. 

On Overspace & Supertime, Cryptic Shift turbulently traverse through technical riffing, chaotic dissonance, and all sorts of wild astro-thrasheries on five intricately crafted tracks—two of which include multiple movements within themselves. The band explore balancing musical theory with sound experimentation, as well as instrumental and narrative creativity with their collective passion for heavy and extreme metal.

“I want every song on a release to be as unique as it can be,” shares Bradley. “Making sure one song is tonally identifiable from the next by embedding thematic motifs so intrinsically within that it’s undeniably of the same strand of DNA. I never want the feeling that a riff from one song could be interchangeable into the next. Much of ‘Cryogenically Frozen’ is based on Alexander Scriabin’s Lydian dominant scale and ‘mystic chords,’ while ‘Hexagonal Eyes’ is based on Neapolitan and Hungarian minor scales … As we all progress on our instruments and songwriting and storytelling, I think we continue to gradually define exactly what the Cryptic Shift sound is.”

Sheperson adds, “It’s a fun challenge writing these more complex songs, and it’s always a mission to push our personal creative boundaries with every album. The longer songs are written with fans of music in mind, people who appreciate thought-out works and enjoy listening to music actively, rather than some limited, passive activity.” 

At the core of Cryptic Shift’s musical inspiration, Sheperson credits “early Megadeth for laying a foundation to mix songwriting with technicality, Morbid Angel for being undoubtedly the best extreme metal band, Timeghoul for their creativity and exploration, CAB for keeping it cool whilst ripping it, and VoiVod for all the space travel.”  

Simultaneously, Bradley attributes an admiration for top-tier filmmakers such as George Lucas, James Cameron, and George Miller, for inspiring the band’s desire to carry out longform, detailed storytelling.  

Revealing further insight into the band’s narrative building, Bradley shares, “Video game structure and logic definitely plays a part in making our stories—how our characters will gain a quest to reach a certain location or find an item that will allow them into the next area. It’s all about keeping a continuous flow of discovery and exploration while remaining true to whatever song we are currently in.” 

In addition, the band utilize a variety of sonic textures and vocal cues to add details and dimension to the narrative being told—even creating their own words (see guitarist Joss  Farrington’s invention of the words “Diverity Trepaphyphasyzm” originally used to name a riff). Conversational sections have become a staple of the Cryptic Shift sound, and Overspace & Supertime actually has two conversations, one each in the longer tracks. 

“Depicted on the cover art, you’ll see the first meeting between The Recaller and The Alien Sorceress, which occurs in movement 5 (V Alien Sorceress: Entrance Theme) of ‘Stratocumulus Evergaol.’ The Recaller approaches, swirling whispers slice into her subconscious, telekinetically driven by the sorceress. They have a whole conversation together within their minds, like a duel of intellects, before actually physically speaking. Once words do come out of the aliens’ strange orifices there’s roughly seven layers of bizarre vocal takes layered with SFX, reversed and inversed to detail this speech of a powerful alien,” Bradley describes. 

He continues, “The other is in the title track, at the end of the big noise section as we’re speaking to Asa’llŭahi for direction in the quest. He’s master of gateways, an ancient deity. The speech here, however, is just my plain vocals.” 

As Overspace & Supertime nears its arrival on planet Earth, both Bradley and Sheperson share both a feeling of accomplishment and massive sense of relief. 

“Finally coming towards the end and hearing the album I’ve had in my head for the better part of a decade is extremely rewarding and relieving,” Bradley expresses. “Whenever you’re writing a track and you seem to unlock it is the best feeling; the riffs and chords and rhythms just flow with awesome idea after another. The whole thing was a monumentally massive undertaking, though, and staying sane through it all was difficult.” 

Sheperson continues, “It was incredibly exciting hearing it all finally come together … It was fun being able to co-produce the whole record, and finally wrap my head around everyone’s ideas. Witnessing Xander achieve all these crazy soundscapes with his guitar pedal board was nuts as well as hearing the vocal ideas for the first time. Also just having fun with our engineer and producer for nearly five months straight really took the pressure off the whole thing. The main challenge was keeping up with studio fatigue.” 

As Cryptic Shift continues their journey forward, echoing some of the more cherished components of classic thrash and death metal acts like Sodom, Sadus, Death, Gorguts, and Revocation, they’ve undoubtedly carved out something that is uniquely their own. With their relentless drive to push themselves as musicians and continuing to expand a narrative that is years in the making, they have more than enough momentum and imagination to thrive off of until time itself no longer exists. 

Overspace & Supertime is out tomorrow, and you can preorder it from Metal Blade Records. Follow Cryptic Shift on Facebook and Instagram for future updates.