Hey there, tech fiends. It's that time of the week again. Before we dive into today's focus, here's the usual weekly reminder that if you're looking for even more sick bands to hear, all prior editions of this series can be perused here.
Germany's own technical death metal brutalizers Cytotoxin have been crushing it since 2010 and just recently dropped their fourth album, Nuklearth, through Unique Leader Records.
With Nuklearth, the band has done their best yet at creating music that extends far beyond their twin-core influences of the Beneath The Massacre and Brain Drill. Oftentimes it’s smaller sections of each song that are clearly not something their core inspirations would do, but, across the full release, the variety of riffs and sections that cull from outside their core framework helps make this the most unique Cytotoxin effort yet.
At the same time, the band is obviously also the victim of poor timing, releasing a new album right when Beneath The Massacre came back with Fearmongerer. After a multi-year absence in which Cytotoxin and only a few others were creating music inspired by that band and feeding that itch for people who love music like this. At the end of the day, Cytotoxin really does keep advancing and getting closer away from feeling like a mere clone type band, and that matters a lot.
If they can expand upon the forward momentum built on Nuklearth, I have no doubt their next releases have the potential to be even greater. Although, ironically or not, the best songs on here are the ones most devoted to their Beneath The Massacre and Brain Drill type material. To me, that just says that like any influential band, it’s possible to create something new within the mold of someone else. There’s nothing wrong with that at all.
I know it may sound like an insult, but, for the first time, when I hear Cytotoxin my instinct isn’t to put on Beneath The Massacre. I’m interested in hearing what they come up with next given their track record of only getting better as time goes by. You can order Nuklearth HERE and HERE. You can also follow the group over on the Cytotoxin Facebook Page.
