Décryptal – Simulacre

vote
6.5

• Band:
  Décryptal
• Duration: 00:38:00
• Available from: 11/07/2025
• Label:

• Me Saco an ojo records

• Rotted Life

Streaming not yet available

In a period in which the bubble of the cavernous death metal seems to deflate a little – with a slightly more contained number of outputs than the peak of a few years ago – it is interesting to observe as a certain underground does not stop by giving a range of new publications every month. Among those in the right of the arrival, the debut album of the Décryptal, Canadian quartet-of the québec-in which ex ex and current members of Outre-Tombe, Sedimentum and Saccage, among the many. Already authors of a demo a couple of years ago, the boys now try their hand at full-length with this “simulacre”, a harbinger of a death metal of the nineties matrix, dark in tones but also discreetly elaborated on the rhythmic side. There is undoubtedly something of the Finnic scene of the past – Adramelech and Demilich – in the way the riffs are concatenated and in the oblique development, vaguely crooked, of certain pieces. At the same time, the tendency to break these screws with more Groovy and straight passages, as if to recall the attention of the least attentive with a badilate of ignorance that reports everything on more raw headbanging registers and soil and soil.
It is a game of balance between controlled chaos and pounding groove that, although not a novelty, is effective also thanks to a compact and convinced execution. In this sense, it is possible to combine the décryptal with contemporary realities such as the first Tomb Molding or Phobophilic: groups that, in different periods, have shared such an aptitude to reinterpret the Death Metal in a technical but dark key, maintaining a direct line with the most authentic underground aesthetic.
The main criticality of this first full-length lies all in a certain atmospheric monotony: the compositions, although dense in the structures, tend to move within expressive tracks rather similar to each other. The general tone always remains turbid, the dynamics internal to the songs never really open – apart from those aforementioned more direct riffs – and every now and then there is no flicker capable of impressing a characteristic and recognizable direction to all tracks. Having said that, episodes such as “Horde d'invertébrés”, “Dendrites” and “Zisurru” emerge with more strength – showing what the décryptal could be able to do once the writing throughout the line – but, on closer inspection, it is also remembered “flétrissement”, with one of the main riffs that refers to “immortal rites” of the soft angels, more rough and lugubrious.
Here then that “simulacre” presents itself as a work that, although not yet shining with its own light in each episode, shows a rather comforting lucidity of intent. The décryptal here aim to build a solid base, made of stylistic consistency, compositional ideas all in all linear and an out -of -discussion executive expertise. It is a heavy, viscous first step, how to trample the bottom of a swamp in which, however, the first singular life forms are already distinguished here and there. If they know how to find the courage to change, to further disintegrate their patterns without losing borders, the second disc could represent the decisive mutation. For now, “simulacre” is an injection of substance in a body that, far from being dead, is only choosing more carefully how (re) generate.