Kryptik Mutation are a new upcoming Texas death metal band and Pulled from the Pit is their debut album.  Short little ditty of a full-length – 8 songs in 23 minutes.  Before I get to the review I have to comment how much I love the album cover.  It has a nostalgic late 80’s flair to it.  The beastly mutated monster is awesome as it pulls it’s meal from its pit….and the cover goes perfectly with the album name.  If you were to look too fast at the band logo you might think they’re a thrash band, but nope, it’s death metal through and through.

“Placentapede” opens the album immediately going into a blast beat, with a nice opening monstrous growl.  The song slows down a bit, there is a nice isolated guitar riff that erupts into an excellent groove with more excellent vocals and some nice plucky bass guitar moments.  The blast beat returns and has an early Suffocation sound – think the Human Waste – Breeding the Spawn days.  “Empires of Galactic Misery” is up next with a nice mid-paced opening moment which shifts into a faster part with thunderous double bass drums and more of the Suffocation style blasting and nice drum roll, before returning to that awesome double bass moment again with some excellent guitar riffing and vocals.  The vocalist’s main style is mid-range and he enunciates very well, at times sounding similar to Frank Mullen; which is a bonus of course.  But Christopher “ThrashHeavy” de Leon is unfraid to throw in those lower moments.  When he throws those lower registers in he goes for that Devourment guttural edge and it’s punishing.

“Demon’s Crest” is the longest song at a little over four minutes with the movie clip intro and then the guitar melodies coming in, with an early Iron Maiden feel to them.  Really throws the listener for a loop, but great to hear the variety of influences they throw in.  Some blasting, mid-paced moments and some riffing that is just razor sharp.  I was happy to hear a guitar solo thrown in, which comes in at the perfect time, then more mid-paced monster heaviness.  Listen on a good sound system to hear the double bass – chest collapsing.  The song eventually teeters into a melodic atmospheric slower part, with the song capturing melo-death metal moments nicely.

After more of that epic style song “Blistering Blow” blasts outta the starting gates abruptly with the blast.   This song is in fact only wanting to rip the skin off your entire body and use it as a blanket as we start something new called skinned alive flesh suit slam-pits!  Hopefully it does not catch on too much, just skin the true trouble-makers who drive super slow in front of us all, when we’re starving and trying to bring home tasty vittles to consume.   “Blistering Blow” is aptly named, because it’s truly a skin blaster of a song.

Pulled from the Pit is produced well.  It’s crisp and really loud.  Turn those air-pods down when listening.  I appreciate when listening to this style of death metal that there is no muddiness and you will not hear any of that on this debut album.  Have you heard other bands with similar styles? – yes you have.  In terms of originality well…hey this is meat and potatoes brutal death metal which has a strong 90’s NYDM influence.  Kryptik Mutation do throw in some nice melo-death moments and remember I mentioned some of those classic metal moments earlier – so they do have some of that going for them.  The band plays with much conviction and the music is hyper-aggressive..with little time to catch your breath.  They mix in tempo shifts well so the music does not become a one trick pony.  Welcome to the scene Kryptik Mutation; Pulled from the Pit is a fun, catchy and brutal listen which I will continue to go back to listen to!

 

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