Of all the Edge Of Sanity albums I never expected Cryptic to get a proper LP release, it would have been Cryptic. Even more unexpected is that this release was remastered by Dan Swanö himself, despite this being the album that the band released after splitting with Swanö over creative direction. Andreas Axelsson wanted to go with a more straightforward death metal approach, while Swanö was pushing towards a progressive metal direction, very much inline with Opeth’s trajectory at the same time. Ultimately, Cryptic is straight up late 1990s death metal and while I still prefer what Swanö was doing, this album is all good.
2026 European reissue on Century Media and it’s a beauty. Even though he wasn’t involved with this album, had an Swanö gave it a fine mastering touch.
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