Album Review: Cronaxia – Collapsing The Outer Structure (Lusitanian Music)

With a history that dates back to 1997, death metallers Cronaxia have now announced the release of their debut full-length, Collapsing the Outer Structure. An album that comes ten years after the band’s first offering, the EP ‘The Solution Above Continuity’. It will be released on September 7th 2018 via Lusitanian Music.

The elaborate and technical style of Cronaxia makes for an animated listen. At its core, Collapsing the Outer Structure is a death metal record but one with a ton of imagination all wrapped up in a wild and uncultured sound. Think a rawer and more vile sounding Meshuggah.

It’s not an easy listen. You only have to give the opening title track a go to see why. Short, sharp and such a wall of noise that before any of it can really register, it’s over and we’re on to the next one.

Both Logarithmic Cavitation and The Core Condition are a bit more structured making them far more listenable. The latter of the two in particular really builds on the early hints of a more proficient Cronaxia effort.

It’s not a simple task to make this level of brutality appealing though and while Cronaxia do a serviceable job of it, it’s still an album that lacks a killer edge. Not that Dimension Ratio and Continuous Signal don’t try everything possible to rain destruction down upon all.

The album’s highlight comes with the sadistic Embryonic Reanimation. At this stage of the album there aren’t really any surprises left for Cronaxia to pull out but they manage it still with a track that is pure chest-beating fury. After that Plasmatech almost sounds ordinary by comparison even if it is still firing off the hyper-fast riffs, aggressive drumming and foul vocals.

Short and potent, Collapsing the Outer Structure comes to a gradual stop with the longest track of the album, Tangential Threshold. It certainly doesn’t slow down, no, instead it grabs those it has within its grasp and drags them kicking and screaming into the light. A determined end to a strong but flawed listen.

Cronaxia – Collapsing the Outer Structure Full Track Listing:

1. Collapsing the Outer Structure
2. Logarithmic Cavitation
3. The Core Condition
4. Dimension Ratio
5. Continuous Signal
6. Embryonic Reanimation
7. Plasmatech
8. Tangential Threshold

You can order the album now via Lusitanian Music and earlier releases via Cronaxia’s Bandcamp. Find out more/keep up to date with news by liking their Facebook Page and subscribing to their YouTube Channel.