After exploding onto the metal scene with their debut album Echoes Of The Soul in 2021, Brazilian death metal outfit Crypta soon found themselves connecting with music lovers on a global stage.
Led by former Nervosa member Fernanda Lira (bass, vocals), Crypta, which is now rounded out by Jéssica di Falchi (guitar), Tainá Bergamaschi (guitar) and Luana Dametto (drums), soon carved their own niche in what is essentially a male dominated realm of death metal.
Their blending of classic and modern death metal with significant extreme and black metal elements, while not unique, was still a scintillating breath of fresh air, but the pressure was always on for the band to deliver with the all important follow up.
That album comes in the form of Shades Of Sorrow, which will be released on August 4.
Shades Of Sorrow is everything Crypta has promised and more. A scathing indictment of metal music delivered with enough lashings of unexpected beauty and chaos to suggest Crypta are a band only just getting started.
Lira sat down with HEAVY to discuss the album in greater detail.
"I'm very excited," she beamed at the approaching release date. "It's getting closer and closer, there's a couple of weeks left (laughs), so I'm overall just really excited and that's because I love the album! We are so happy and satisfied with the album and we believe in it so much, we just wanna share it with the whole world and see if people can have fun spinning the record. That's an interesting thing... I don't feel nervous, or anxious, or pressured at all. With our first album I have to admit that I was feeling a little bit pressured and a little bit insecure. First of all I have anxiety disorder, so that was fucking up my mind a little bit back then, but also it was my new band. People had never listened to anything from the band. I was curious as to what their reaction was gonna be but now I know we do have fans, we can see how fans are excited about our band and about us releasing a new album... so we're confident about it. There's no room for any anxiety or pressure. We're just really, really happy and excited to be sharing it. It's like when you have a very precious gift to someone, and then you can't wait for that birthday to give them the gift? It's kind of like that, a childlike wonder. That's how I'm feeling."
With Shades Of Sorrow receiving rave advance reviews we press Lira to reveal more about its musical nature.
"This album, comparing it to Echoes Of The Soul which was our first album, I think it's a way more mature album," she measured. "That's the word I like to use because that's what it is. Don't get me wrong, I love our first album, but back then we were still experimenting. Trying to find out what was our sound; what was the essence of the band musically speaking. With this new album and the feedback from the first album, I think we could understand what people would expect from a Crypta album, and we captured that. Then we started experimenting on top of what we already had set as our essence. So this freedom was important to us and I think that's why the album is more mature." In the full interiew Fernanda delves more into the musicality of the album, the two singles released and how they represent the album, the beautiful piano intro and subsequent interlude and closing passages, the album title and where it comes from, the early days of the band and their early vision, how it has changed since, touring plans and more.