Released on October 15, 2016 via Transcending Obscurity Records

From Mumbai, India in Central Asia comes budding death metal collective Darkrypt and their debut full-length album care of Transcending Obscurity Records entitled, Delirious Excursion.

Some bands need no introduction, being scene veterans, but promising young bands need all the help that they can get, and Echoes and Dust is proud to host this premiere for fans of good dark death metal jams.

Darkrypt hashes out nine tracks of mostly mid-tempo to slow churning death metal on Delirious Excursion. The Mumbai band occasionally go faster to mix things up, but mostly, they create atmosphere fitting for a dark cave full of hyper-acidic bat droppings to suffocate the listener. By that I don’t mean that they play plenty of ambient music. Darkrypt prefers to slow things down and let the jams develop on mid-tempo headbanging segments and slow chugging riffs rooted on the sixth and fifth-strings. Though not downtuned to excessive levels, the guitar tone has plenty of grit, and occasionally, when the band breaks character and launches into a salvo, the grit during shredding builds up to insane levels.

While the band isn’t all-out intense with its playing style, the songs are executed at comfortable, competent levels. You don’t get the sense that these guys just started rehearsing together several months ago.

Death metal fans need to be educated sometimes, as fans tend to think that the only style or tempo befitting the trve or kvlt tags comes with playing fast. Delirious Excursion isn’t a doom/death album by all means, but the band slows down enough to make room for some quality breakdowns quite unlike the style made popular by one-trick pony deathcore bands. Echoes and Dust is here to initiate the neophytes.

This style isn’t actually too uncommon. Think slower-tempos Hail of Bullets perhaps, or mid-tempo groove a’la defunct Swedish death metal horde Altar. On a couple of instances, the band plays some clean guitar plucking and some fast downpicks along the higher frets. Delirious Excursion has balance and songwriting dynamics uncanny for a young band. The song structure is varied and the riffs are catchy. The riffs shape-shift adequately, and are never overplayed. The solos are also good. It is nice to report that the band doesn’t downpick almost exclusively. The chugging riffs lead to shreds and downpick and uppick portions in a cohesive manner.

Fans of death metal songs that feature good songwriting chops should check out the stream. Groovy, sometimes chugging at mid-tempo, slow-breakdowns and all, Darkrypt’s Delirious Excursion is a delirious excursion into well-executed death metal that fans of slower tempos will love instantly. Listening to the album repeatedly always brings out a section or segment that wasn’t noticed readily before. The production is crisp and the bass doesn’t have to beg to be heard – never prompting you to turn up the subwoofer or wonder just why there’s not enough bass signal traveling through the wires. The drums keep time adequately, navigating through the paces with precision as the guitar riffs morph throughout the album.

Feature track, ‘The Inducer’, features some of the best riffs and transitions on Delirious Excursion, so don’t wait, stream the track and get a copy of the record before its too late. Listen to ‘The Inducer’ exclusively here: