Cytotoxin – Biographyte
Release Date: 18th April 2025
Label: Self Released
Bandcamp
Genre: Technical Death Metal, Brutal Death Metal.
FFO: Origin, Wormed, Dying Fetus, Aborted.
Review By: Jeff Finch
Chernobyl. Pripyat. Radioactive decay. Most, if not all, of the adult population has probably heard of the infamous Chernobyl reactor meltdown back in 1986, and based on some of the shows and documentaries that exist, there is still widespread interest in the disaster. A place where one might not expect to get their dose of Chernobyl details is from a German death metal band, were one to hazard a guess. Yet, Cytotoxin, the focus of today’s review, has thus far made a career of their fascination with the disaster, akin to the band 1914 focusing on the horrors of World War I in their catalogue, resulting in death metal so pummeling and ruthless it’s like getting kicked in the face repeatedly by an elephant’s foot.
This new one, Biographyte, is no different: Cytotoxin wants you to feel the weight of the music and the weight of the disaster, and they do so with blistering leads, technical fretwork, uninterrupted and downright insane drumming, and an air of pure vocal rage and anguish, resulting in a mammoth sound that won’t let you leave unscathed.
Right off the bat listeners are blasted with fretwork mastery, the band not wasting one second to showcase their technical abilities, machine gun drumming and a demonically low growl joining forces for a quick spell before transitioning into a masterfully uncomfortable rhythm. The drumming is frenetic, the guitars seemingly in an entirely different time signature, vocals consistently in time with the percussive blasts, yet somehow working brilliantly. The topic is uncomfortable, so the band makes us feel uncomfortable. Well played.
The band takes every opportunity they can to demonstrate their innate musical abilities, able to alternate between obscenely technical death metal and relentless brutal death metal with nary a beat missed, performed with such precision that one can be forgiven for thinking they missed something, and it’s just an extension of the previous melody, not an entirely separate, yet powerful, musical showcase. Crushing heaviness abounds when the band slows for a breakdown, the mammoth guitars produced to create maximum destruction, the growls getting as low as those guitar riffs, emanating, radiating out of the speakers.
Title track Biographyte takes what the band is known for and tweaks it a bit: the blast beats and unrepentant double bass kick combine with blistering fast melodies but aren’t forced high in the mix. It sounds as though the vocals are given more room to work here, the band choosing to stay heavy but utilize a different feature to ram the point home. The tapping solo around the halfway point that transitions into pure thrash in a split second is a highlight of the song, leading us into a second half more focused on tight, clean melodies and technical prowess, the guitarist clearly in possession of incredible talent and stamina, for the band slows down at points, but the guitars are always blasting forward.
The album averages nearly 5 minutes per track and by the end of it, a listener may find themselves exhausted as a result of the vicious pummeling they’ve received. There are so many shifts in sound, so much unrepentant aggression, so much insane talent in this band on full display, that every track is like an individual chapter of a dissertation on Chernobyl’s effects on the heavy music scene. Eventless Horizon is a perfect example, as the band throws everything they have into the crushing soundscape: the ferocious leads, the blisteringly fast percussion, the vocals from a demon brought from the depths beneath Chernobyl, it’s all on here early and often, shifting into monster mid-tempo riffs over machine gun drumming, these slower moments showcasing that the band can actually be heavier, the entire band taking on a mid-paced approach towards the latter half of the song, the tapping front and center but the crushing, doomy riffs behind them creating an end of days theme worthy of a horror film, bleak and oppressive as the lead guitarist melts our faces with music, not radiation, a mix of chaotic fretwork with pure shredding fury.
Though Cytotoxin does not reinvent the wheel, or their individual sound, on this album, what they’ve done is refined it even more, this record a reminder to the world that a) Chernobyl will never be forgotten and b) Cytotoxin isn’t going anywhere and might actually be getting heavier, especially if this is what they’re capable of releasing fifteen years into their monstrous existence. If you want a history lesson as you’re being bludgeoned by an elephant’s foot, look no further.
(4.5 / 5)
