EDGE OF SANITY — Cryptic (review)

Album · 1997 · Melodic Death Metal

1/5 · 2010-03-25
J-Man

Edge of Sanity Without Dan Swanö?

Let me just say this from the start of my review - Dan Swanö is the heart and soul of Edge of Sanity. People might argue against that, but Cryptic proves that I'm right. This album is generic and uninspired death metal, and is a huge disappointment in the band's discography. Edge of Sanity's previous album, Infernal was an awkward and flawed release, but the album had many high quality moments thanks to Dan Swanö. With this album it's very obvious that Edge of Sanity is struggling without their frontman.

On Cryptic the compositions are noticeably weaker than on any other Edge of Sanity release, and that is the biggest problem here. Without Dan Swanö's songwriting, the band can only create rather uninspired music. On Infernal, many of the compositions without Dan's help were poor, but on this album all of them are severely lacking.

I don't consider these songs bad just because they're not the style of prog metal that Edge of Sanity had played on a few of their previous albums. Unorthodox is pure death metal, but it's a really great album from the band. This album is just disastrous, and there's really no other way of putting it. When you compare this to masterpieces like Crimson, and great albums like Crimson II and Purgatory Afterglow, this is far below the quality of those albums.

The album is not a complete failure, though. Songs like "No Destiny" (my favorite from the album) and "Uncrontroll Me" are pretty good by death metal standards, though they are far below the usual standard from Edge of Sanity. Many of the songs aren't very memorable, and that's one of the biggest flaws from this album. When I finish listening to this album I can only recall 2 or 3 riffs, and that just shows how uninspired this album is.

Conclusion:

Cryptic is a really disappointing effort from Edge of Sanity, and it isn't worth more than 1 star. The lack of memorable compositions really destroys this album, even though the musicianship is tight and the production is great. Even if you're interested in Edge of Sanity, there really is no reason to own this album. This is only for die-hard collectors.

more than 2 years ago
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The Angry Scotsman wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Noted Jonas : D

2 - 2.5! I am impressed Jeff, and that is almost up to my rating of 3! Glad to hear you hate it less than you used to haha

J-Man wrote:

more than 2 years ago

If I were to re-write this review today, my rating would be around a 2 - 2.5. I still think it's a very weak album (the worst EoS by far), but the production and musicianship are good and there are some good riffs in there as well. There are MANY better Swedish DM albums out there, but this isn't nearly as abysmal as I once thought. Still not recommendable IMO, though...

UMUR wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Consider it a recommendation then :-)

The Angry Scotsman wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Ah, well to each their own! I have just given it three stars because really, I just listened to it from start to finish, enjoyed a good bit and never really got bored : D
But I do hear you guys, a good album for EoS is unimpressive! Also I don't know some of those bands Jonas so I can't compare.

UMUR wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Personally I think it´s a below standard Swedish death metal album. I wouldn´t waste money on this one when there are so many other great and in many ways similar in style releases by acts like Entombed, Dismember, Grave, Unleashed, Sorcery, Gorement, God Macabre, Carbonized, Cadaver, Darkthrone (the first album, Necrophobic...etc. out there

The Angry Scotsman wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I will agree this may not be to the standard of EoS and without Swano the songwriting takes a hit, but I shall have to respectfully disagree about the rest. Compared to Death Metal overall, this album is still fairly atypical IMO. Also not too bad really.