{"id":306467,"date":"2026-02-23T19:49:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T19:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/306467\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T19:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T19:49:08","slug":"cryptic-shift-overspace-supertime-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/306467\/","title":{"rendered":"Cryptic Shift – Overspace & Supertime Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"With the same swirling whammy lick opening \u201cMoonbelt Immolator\u201d gracing the opening minute of \u201cCryogenically Frozen,\u201d Cryptic Shift have returned. Visitations from Enceladus was a monolithic record that rocked my world in 2020<\/a>, taking me to the most vile reaches of the universe in a technical death\/thrash expedition of cosmic horror. Six years later, the group from Leeds, UK aim to expand on their already expansive debut regarding both their sci-fi theming and musicality with their sophomore. They didn\u2019t skimp out on us either: Overspace & Supertime is one track greater than Visitations and nearly twice as long, boasting two twenty-plus-minute epics. A feature film\u2019s runtime of borderline avant-garde extreme metal is no small feat, but if designed and shaped with singular vision, patience and skill, then anything can happen. And in the strange aeons Cryptic Shift occupy, anything happens all the time.<\/p>\n

An undertaking like Overspace & Supertime demands top-notch performances to survive: Cryptic Shift couldn\u2019t have done much better. Keeping true to the mix of Atheistic death, Vektorian thrash, and King Crimsonian progressive sensibilities that made the debut a knockout, Cryptic Shift have opened another wormhole of technical death\/thrash immensity. But if you\u2019re imagining Visitations II: Eldritch Boogaloo, stop. Overspace takes what made Visitations great and kicks it into warp speed. The guitar duo of Xander Bradley and Joss Farrington (Cryptworm) tear through an embarrassment of mind-bending, neck-breaking riffs across Overspace, bending across their whole fretboards, soloing on \u201cStratocumulus Evergaol\u201d and putting their entire asses behind the chugged-up \u201cHyperspace Topography.\u201d Drummer Ryan Sheperson pummels his kit in time I can only guess at on \u201cOverspace & Supertime\u201d while bassist John Riley fretlessly glides over \u201cCryogenically Frozen\u201d into solos traded off between the guitars, amounting to a finessed, yet relentless attack. Topped off with Bradley\u2019s cavernous bellows, Overspace & Supertime is a tour de force of musical expertise.<\/p>\n

\ufeffOverspace & Supertime by Cryptic Shift<\/a><\/p>\n

What carries Cryptic Shift\u2019s longform songwriting is that their music is always in flux. Whenever the band seems lost in their own prog-sauce\u2014like in the effect-heavy openings of \u201cHexagonal Eyes (Diverity Trepaphymphasyzm)\u201d and \u201cCryogenically Frozen\u201d\u2014they always swing back with a bruiser riff that helps keep Overspace more approachable than it ought to be. Like on Visitations, Cryptic Shift employ clean guitar passages and eerie atmospheres to outline the heavy bits. But on Overspace, they are woven smoothly into the distorted parts to create dynamic passages, like the shimmering clean strums between monstrous death hits on \u201cStratocumulus Evergaol\u201d or the blackened surf-rock tremolos of \u201cHyperspace Topography.\u201d But Cryptic Shift\u2019s greatest dynamic on Overspace is that of light vs. dark. While their debut was a pitch-black exploration of space-born horrors, Overspace injects a healthy dosage of awe into their mix, including strangely bright conclusions to \u201cCryogenically Frozen\u201d and \u201cOverspace & Supertime\u201d and a passage at ~16 minutes into \u201cStratocumulus Evergaol\u201d that\u2019s so boppy that it could pass for Rise Against. It\u2019s in the name: Cryptic Shift change in some strange ways over the course of Overspace & Supertime, and I\u2019m here for it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And this leads me to the true wonder of Overspace & Supertime and where its immensity is most benefited: the beauty of the off-kilter. This is an album of purely aggressive, dissonant, esoteric, and oddly-timed stuff; Cryptic Shift made no obvious move, and they\u2019re clearly not gunning for radio play. So why is it so beautiful? Solos that effortlessly slide from Slayer-like chromatic bullshittery into soaring melodicism. Patient ambiances both tranquil and unsettling, belligerent thrashing as exhilarating as it is hostile. The brilliant production best described by Dolphin Whisperer as \u201ctone porn,\u201d where all cleans are crystalline, and everything dirty is disgusting. How easy it is to fall under Cryptic Shift\u2019s spell and let the freeform journey take you on its many twists and turns. The fact that Overspace & Supertime gets weird and takes its precious time doing so allows the listener to immerse themselves in Cryptic Shift\u2019s world, making for a simply sublime experience.<\/p>\n

In retrospect, Visitations from Enceladus feels like Cryptic Shift\u2019s proof-of-concept for Overspace & Supertime. Yes, this is an exhausting record. Trying to catch everything on it during your first listen could make you go blind. Maybe 80 minutes is too damn long. But Overspace & Supertime is a better record than my wildest expectations, six years in the making, ever dreamed up. Like Frank Zappa at his best, Cryptic Shift on Overspace left me frequently confused, sometimes just plain tickled, but never unmoved before their showcase of the bizarre and the otherwordly. In the stranger aeons Cryptic Shift occupy, anything has happened.<\/p>\n

Rating: Excellent
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps MP3
Label: Metal Blade Records<\/a>
Websites: cryptic-shift.bandcamp<\/a> | facebook.com\/crypticshift<\/a>
Releases Worldwide: February 27, 2026<\/p>\n

\n\tGive in to Your Anger:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the same swirling whammy lick opening \u201cMoonbelt Immolator\u201d gracing the opening minute of \u201cCryogenically Frozen,\u201d Cryptic Shift…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[4155,142079,154117,154118,154119,45562,146,142080,154120,85,46,107852,59719,409,154121,30681,1529,1530,154122,73157,30683,30685,154123],"class_list":{"0":"post-306467","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-4155","9":"tag-4-5","10":"tag-atheist","11":"tag-cryptic-shift","12":"tag-cryptworm","13":"tag-english-metal","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-feb26","16":"tag-frank-zappa","17":"tag-il","18":"tag-israel","19":"tag-king-crimson","20":"tag-metal-blade-records","21":"tag-music","22":"tag-overspace-supertime","23":"tag-progressive-metal","24":"tag-review","25":"tag-reviews","26":"tag-rise-against","27":"tag-slayer","28":"tag-technical-death-metal","29":"tag-thrash-metal","30":"tag-vektor"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}