Nova Scotia-based Canadian early Kataklysm worshipers Cephalectomy are back with their first solo effort since 2004’s Eclipsing The Dawn entitled The Dream Cycle Mythos. The release consists of a single twenty-three minute track and is easily the band’s most ambitious and varied offering to date.

The song structure on The Dream Cycle Mythos is incredibly complex as the band fuses many different styles into a single song, switching between relentless chaotic death grind and the most calming and soothing orchestral melodies imaginable. The most common approach the band takes on this track is consistent with the band’s earlier discography; fast, technical chaotic death grind highly inspired by early Kataklysm with wild frenetic riffing, inhuman gurgles, growls, snarls and shrieks backed by a relentless blast beat.

In the brief interludes between the chaos, the music is much simpler and more soothing, with soft keyboard-led melodies that are as gentle as laying on a cloud. The thing that’s great about "The Dream Cycle Mythos" is the transitions from one segment to the next are seamless, you really feel like you’re just listening to one song rather than a combination of multiple songs crammed into one, while no two sections really sound alike.

The album has constant tempo and melody changes, when Cephalectomy aren’t soothing you to sleep or shredding your skull to pieces they’re picking you apart with original, complex technical riffs and melodies.

The production on The Dream Cycle Mythos is perfect for the material the band create, every instrument, grunt, gurgle, growl and blast beat comes across clearly. Throughout it’s twenty-three minutes you’ll have an endless number of bands rushing through your head as you try to think of comparisons. The only thing you can really say about this effort is that it is as unique as it is crushing.

If you yearn for the days of The Mystical Gate Of Reincarnation and Sorcery-era Kataklysm you’re going to lose your shit when you hear The Dream Cycle Mythos. That’s not to say Cephalectomy are a clone of Kataklysm, it’s similar in style and structure, but with a lot more emphasis on the chaotic grind aspect of the material. If anything it’s more like one part early Kataklysm, one part Portal, one part Depresy, one part Watchmaker, one part Gigantic Brain and one part Cephalic Carnage all beaten and mangled into one warped and twisted slab of unforgiving extreme metal that’ll leave you battered, bleeding and screaming.

The Dream Cycle Mythos does take some time to get into. I probably listened to the entire album, beginning to end, at least a dozen times before it clicked. There’s just so much going on all at once that it becomes very overwhelming at first, it really takes some patience to listen to the album a few times before it all starts to make sense and the album goes from being simply a big wall of sound to being a truly original and awe inspiring slab of technical death grind.

If that wasn’t enough, The Dream Cycle Mythos CD is packed with tons of extra goodies including the band’s entire killer 2004 full length effort Eclipsing The Dawn in MP3 format, insane covers of Misfits‘ "Horror Business" & "Where Eagles Dare" and Judas Priest’s "Living After Midnight", some previously unreleased tracks and a video for the song "The Igniting Tempest".

If you’re a Cephalectomy fan, a fan of early Kataklysm, a fan of technical death metal or a fan of insanely chaotic death grind, you have to buy The Dream Cycle Mythos, it’s just way too good of a release to pass up. I’d suggest listening to the tracks on Eclipsing The Dawn first to familiarize yourself with the band’s sound, it’ll make your first listen of The Dream Cycle Mythos much easier to handle. Highly recommended!

Written By: Teufel