CRYPTA have released "A Portrait Of Decay", the first song recorded by the lineup they finished assembling in April — and the first real indication of where the Brazilian death metal band go after "Shades Of Sorrow".
Victoria Villarreal was confirmed as permanent guitarist earlier this year, completing a four-piece alongside Fernanda Lira (bass, vocals), Luana Dametto (drums) and Tainá Bergamaschi (guitar). This is what that room sounds like: an aggressive death metal steamroller, in the band's own words, built around dissociation as a way of surviving pain rather than processing it. The attack underneath is heavier than it is pretty, but there is real atmosphere and real melancholy in it, and Lira's voice remains one of the most immediately identifiable in extreme metal.
The track was recorded in Belgium in June, engineered, mixed and mastered by Yarne Heylen at Project Zero Studio. Marcos Miller, a Brazilian artist, did the cover. It is out worldwide on streaming and as a strictly limited seven-inch.
The video is the surprise. Nothing about it matches the violence of the song on first glance, which is the point — Dametto wrote the script herself.
"The video clip is both an almost poetic contrast to the harsh death metal sound but also a cinematic depiction of the lyrics," she says. "An ethereal and almost dream-like landscape that represents someone's true state of being, clear thoughts and light emotions, that slowly dissipate with the passing of time and changing of surroundings, and with the night and a much darker environment, after a while, feelings of being adrift and astray arise, showing that our conditions and time can directly change the way we see ourselves and the way we feel and interact."
The timing is not accidental. CRYPTA begin a North American tour on October 5 in Riverside, California, opening for ARCH ENEMY and THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER alongside SEPTICFLESH and THROWN INTO EXILE — a bill on which a brand-new song by a brand-new lineup gets tested in front of large rooms almost immediately.
CRYPTA were formed in 2019 by Dametto and Lira after both left NERVOSA. "Shades Of Sorrow", their second album, arrived in August 2023 and pulled classic death metal, modern production and streaks of black metal into the same frame. The touring cycle behind it ended earlier this year. This is the other side of that line.
CRYPTA is:
- Fernanda Lira — bass, vocals
- Tainá Bergamaschi — guitar
- Victoria Villarreal — guitar
- Luana Dametto — drums