When you make yourself known as a name that’s not to be messed with practically right out of the gate, where else can you take your sound? The way I see it, there are really only two options: (1) find yourself excavating every crevice of your sound until you’ve truly mastered it inside and out, or (2) carving out a new sonic path altogether. Each options have intrigue and potential when in the right hands, and there’s always something to be said for those that are able to accomplish both. Having put forth quite a display of power with their second album four years ago, it is now with their fourth that Crypts of Despair shows us what they can still do.

Unyielding death metal is in no shortage by any stretch of the imagination with that being the case for decades now, yet we find ourselves in a time where it really feels like bands are travelling new paths within their own realms. While it can sometimes lead to creations that miss their mark and leave you wanting more, bands like Crypts of Despair are reliable and voracious in practically every given form with their talent and prowess undeniable in practically every instance. It was in their previous work that this Lithuanian act showed us their own variety of truly caustic death metal, yet it is with virtually each bit of these nine tracks that we see ferocity mixed with a brutal curiosity for what else can be done while never once straying too far from the menace and violent melancholy that “We Belong in the Grave” uses to hit home to devastating effect to make their brand of oppressive death metal something that does more than simply tear flesh; it rends the spirit. Straightforward but never lacking in nuance, this is the kind of different that hits all the right notes one could ask for from a modern act of the sound that pulls no punches. Refusing to be reliant solely on riffs to incorporate atmosphere and evocative notions in a truly suffocating mix that never gives the listener a chance to escape even amongst the work’s smallest moments in the dark, “We Belong in the Grave” delivers in a way that many others dream to achieve yet immensely few can pull off.

While there are many notions made throughout this effort that points to the contrary, what has been crafted here is anything but just simple death metal. Evolving their sound in subtle ways to intrigue fans new and old alike, what Crypts of Despair has accomplished here is a darkness that is nigh on potent. “We Belong in the Grave” more than lives up to the reputation that Crypts of Despair has made for itself in what feels like hardly any time with the very future of death metal theirs for the taking. They need only to not loosen their ferocious grip.

“We Belong in the Grave” releases on April 18th via Transcending Obscurity Records!

LISTEN to advanced tracks from “We Belong in the Grave” on Bandcamp here.

LIKE Crypts of Despair on Facebook here.