Band:	Psycroptic
Album:	Psycroptic
Style:	Technical death metal
Release date:	March 09, 2015
A review by:	R'Vannith

01. Echoes To Come
02. Ending
03. A Soul Once Lost
04. Cold
05. Setting The Skies Ablaze
06. Ideals That Won't Surrender
07. Sentence Of Immortality
08. The World Discarded
09. Endless Wandering

An innate capacity of Psycroptic is their stability in studio variance. No record is a replication of those which preceded it, and each successively demonstrates the band's evolution without compromising the core integrity in their technical approach to death metal. A self-titled sees no change to this, yet it lacks the vigorous edge expected from an album bearing the band's own name.

The direction that the Tasmanians have been taking across their most recent efforts is one that has, at this point, distanced their studio sound considerably from the brutal extremities found in The Scepter Of The Ancients. They've consistently opted for a style based in fleeter song structure than a technically delivered death metal; its currently more fluid form and technicality foregoing an emphasis on a more stringent death metal tone and foundation. Years after the loss of the lauded vocalisations from "Chalky," the band have moved with the times to an extent. Though not to lose their own identity, they've pursued a style on the verge of integrating metalcore into the mix, primarily through Peppiat's more relevantly modern manner of vocal delivery. Although unerring, the vocals became a very fixed feature for the previous record, despite all of its strengths in performance.

The production of The Inherited Repression made for an exceptional clarity of sound that brought out the best in the band's increasingly melodic tendencies, with technical precision at the behest of the frantic fret fanatic that is Joe Haley implementing the drive to a well layered and mixed maelstrom about integrally melodic song structures. The tightly woven riffs were incisive and the rhythms engaging, albeit induced in a more homogenous outing for the band.

Psycroptic sees variety between its tracks as more vital this time around, and is the record's greatest asset, it being more commendable than their previous outing in The Inherited Repression in this regard. Peppiat enhances much of the instrumental variety in his equally varied vocal arrangements, from the rapid metalcore venom of the thrash fuelled number "Setting The Skies Ablaze" to the clear pronunciation in delivery in cuts like "Cold" and "Ending." However, and despite the album's well established points of distinction best demonstrated within its first half, there is an intra-track degradation which wears the record down considerably; the instrumentation lacking variance within the context of each track to avoid the onset of a monotonous drag that weighs on the record, especially toward its filler prone end.

The record removes the atmospheric backdrop that had been such an enhancing aspect to prior efforts, consequently capturing a comparatively plain and pale sound. The early promise of such an atmosphere in the intro of the opener "Echoes To Come" is one largely left unfulfilled throughout the album's duration, ultimately representing a bare-bones performance for the band.

Although technical proficiency certainly isn't lost to them in a self-titled, and commendable variety between its tracks are made available, it's plain to hear that Psycroptic are going through the motions in this latest effort.