Record label comments, radio airplay & magazine reviews
Here are current and older critiques of our works. If you want to write a review about any of our music so far, just fill hereunder. If you want to send us an interview for your online/printed mag or your podcast/radio program, send to press@sceptocrypt.com
General band overview
Born on the small Mediterranean island of Malta, Sceptocrypt are gifted metal musicians that have built themselves a name in the field of death metal. Sceptocrypt is a powerful and aggressive band that enthralls audiences with their thundering drumming, gutteral vocals and ferocious guitar riffs. Their work is proof of the brutality and rawness inherent in the death metal subgenre.
Inspired by legendary death metal acts like Cannibal Corpse, Death and Morbid Angel, Sceptocrypt add their own distinct spin to the subgenre. Their ability to produce a visceral and dramatic audio experience is demonstrated by the dark and ominous atmosphere of their music. Their compositions’ unwavering intensity and technical mastery reveal their commitment to their art.
The music of Sceptocrypt transports listeners to a depressing and dark realm and elicits a variety of emotions. Their music transports listeners to the depths of human emotion, from the unrelenting aggression that ignites head-banging mosh pits to the sombre melodies that inspire reflection. Every note produced by Sceptocrypt demonstrates their skill and love for what they do, creating a profound impression on everyone who hears it – viberate.com/
The Wards Outside (2024)
Feel free to leave us your comments on our 1st track showcasing our new Extreme Music Research direction!
Wow, a 12.5 minute song – that’s ambitious from the get go! I see that Sceptocrypt are truly resurrected. I’m hearing some of your avantgarde side coming out in this material. Very free-flowing and artist craft oriented. Some of the textures remind me a bit of Misanthrope (Fr) in their early (prime) days. – Heinously Yours YouTube Chnl
Heatstrokes 31/03/24, an episode dedicated completely to Maltese metal, and including The Wards Outside
Oratorio Mortem 2 : The Unwanted Requiem (Comeback track 2023)
On November 25, 2023, Malcolm Callus, the founder of Sceptocrypt in 1992 in Malta, announced the re-launch of the band this year in London. Malcolm, now based in London, reflects on the significance of the band’s return after a 24-year absence, choosing to release a requiem titled “Oratorio Mortem 2: The Unwanted Requiem.” This decision is deeply personal, as it was inspired by the passing of his mother. Malcolm expresses gratitude for the opportunity to be with his mother in her final moments and dedicates the song as a thank you, released exactly two months after her passing.
The cover art for the requiem, features an angel with a trumpet symbolizing the release of one’s grip and surrendering to the currents of life. This imagery resonates with the theme of flowing effortlessly with the cosmic rhythm, a concept inspired by Malcolm’s mother’s approach to life.
The process of creating the requiem was cathartic for Malcolm, providing an outlet for his restlessness and lack of sleep during the week of his mother’s passing. Initially titled “The Unwanted Requiem,” the song’s name was later changed to “Oratorio Mortem 2” as a nod to the band’s history of resilience. Sceptocrypt faced the prospect of splitting up in 1996 but found new musicians, recorded “Oratorio Mortem” in 1997, and went on to experience success with a stronger lineup.
– Noel Mifsud, melodija.eu
!26 Hrs 72 mins …. the need to differ) (full CD 1999 released 2015)
Excellent atmospheres! You have your own musical and artistic universe! We’re reminded of Hollenthon, Therion, Dodheimsgard, Arcturus, Atrox and even Cradle of Filth! A succession of emotions! An obvious theatrical side! Quite avant-garde! The mid-tempo, jazzy and calm passages are sublime, taking us to many different lands! The musicians are good! The vocals are good, sometimes possessed, sometimes intimate or lyrical, offering variety! Lots of creativity and originality! It would be good to revise the production if possible and remix/remaster it, but it really comes through and you can hear the various instruments well, especially the bass, which is a very good point for an album recorded in 1999! Excellent Album with long and exciting compositions! Epic! Can’t wait to hear your new album! – Max, WormHoleDeath Label, April 2024
I really don’t know where to put this band in. But maybe that’s a big positive plus-point for them. I was totally surprised – a lot on instruments and different tones of voices (female and male) and a great variety of melodies are used.
– Twan Sibon, Brutalism.com, NL
Oratorio Mortem
compilation track 1997
Oratorio Mortem (compilation track 1997)
Oratorio Mortem is a more mature work where guitars and keyboards dominate. More attention is given to vocal parts. In short, one more step forward is made – DEATH BITE Zine, Lithuania
“This song is great and very original!!! At first this song starts with some acoustic guitar line accompanied with bass-lines and some voices effects made by synths. The beginning of this song has a strange mood, but very relaxing, then the mood turns suddenly to dark accompanied with echoed drums, and then it turns to death metal with great drumming and fast muted guitar accompanied with a guitar solo. Something that impressed me from this song was that the death metal part was sung by a soprano vocalist with screams in the background. An original song with weird and echoed atmosphere, and a good mixture with avantgarde and death metal.”This song is great and very original!!! …. Some thing that impressed me from this song was that the death metal part was sung by a soprano vocalist with screams in the background. An original song with weird and echoed atmosphere, and a good mixture with avant-garde and death metal. – MISTBREED zine #1, Gozo, Malta
Great, especially the male backing vocals – Godwin, Malefica zine, Malta
Very original – J.P Sammut, Toppling Colossus Records.
Poor Crows, Give ’em a Deal
rehearsal promo 1997
“Poor Crows, Give ‘Em A Deal” (rehearsal tape 1997)
Experimental music, very well structured, unbelievable!!! – Holy Records, France
I must say I was surprised by your material, since it is nothing I expected! … quite interesting and above all original and even unique! Originality is something very important nowadays, I think! There also has been quite some work put into the lyrics! I really would like to hear your new material, so keep me posted! – Majestic Union Records, Germany
Thanks for sending “Poor Crows Give ‘Em A Deal”. I’m not usually a death-metal fan but I enjoyed listening to your tape because of it not being the usual kind of metal. I’d be interested to hear more of your music. – Bliss Records, UK.
…….why the fuck hasn’t Sceptocrypt been given a deal yet? Well this is the dilemma, what could be the reason? To be honest I don’t know…… I think that SCEPTOCRYPT are one of the foremost underground bands in Malta. Fullstop. Their style is quite personal and hard to describe but if I were to label them, I would have to say they play avantgarde music. — FLESHCRAWL Zine # 1, Malta
This promo tape comes with 6 weird songs into avantgarde, experimental death metal with some gothic touches. This promo will take your mind and soul to a strange atmosphere of melancholy, tragedy and darkness. The vocals are great!! Well varied; from groovy death metal vocals to high pitched grim vocals and to shouts to clean, and there’s also featured female echoed soprano vocals . The music is great at all points. Strange, great and aggressive!! – MISTBREED Zine #1, Gozo, Malta.
This band is from Malta, I’ve wanted to hear more Maltese bands for some time and this is the first band I’ve managed to track down and get a tape from. They play death metal, a genre which usually does not absolutely nothing for me, but this band are not only more melodic than I was expecting, they are more innovative and original. This is not straightforward death metal that just consists of loads of noise and harsh, hoarse vocals, this has a progressive, orchestral and even experimental feel. Although there are some hoarse vocals, they usually don’t grate as much as your usual death metal vocals, as they are often, especially on side one to create a more dark and spooky feel than a straight forward in yer face yelling type feel. But it’s not all those kind of vocals, there’s more melodic singing too. Two of their vocalists are female, one of whom is soprano. Lyrics are mostly in English, though Isegoria 2000 is sung in four different languages – Greek, German, Latin and Maltese. And, reading the lyric sheet, I can actually understand a few words of the Maltese part of the song! Not all of it though, I’m hardly fluent yet… Anyway, I never thought I’d say this of a death metal band , but this tape is actually an interesting listen in the main, due to the fact that it’s not all metal, there’s other genres in there too. The last two tracks on side two tend to rely a bit too much on the hoarse vocals for my personal taste, I prefer the other tracks because they come across as being more of a mixture of genres, but all the songs are all very well done. – AQUAMARINE zine, UK
Sceptocrypt. Their second work and my second surprise, which is put into 45min. tape which contains 3 tracks. It seems to be no end to progress in the mind of these youngsters. I’ll not let myself dive into speeches about this music, it is simply modern, lyric and avant-garde metal, and if I were talking from MTV or VIVA studio, I’d say that all the 3 works are hits. I got used to the originality of this group listening to their first demo. This promo is special because of its lyrics, which are written in English, Greek, Latin, German and Maltese. I was simply amazed by the female vocals, especially the soprano, the bass vocals are also great. I have dared to call this crazy avante-garde music an art, because the more I listen to it, the more I like it. No end to their progress, SCEPTOCRYPT is simply modern, lyric and avant-garde metal. Very unique, we can praise this group for their wide musical views and for not being afraid to experiment. – DEATH BITE Zine #5, Lithuania
The band’s bio reads …”Termed by the press as avant-garde, progressive, extreme metal which is not easy to listen to…” and I must agree, Sceptocrypt are not for the lazy listener, you really have to follow in this extremely avant-garde band’s passages to understand where you are going, …. so you people out there that are always griping about music today not being original enough, well Sceptocrypt bring back the lost art of originality! Sceptocrypt is good for avant-garde doom, slow sludge pace metal to downright nasty and raw black metal. Pretty much this band is all over the place. This band isn’t for everybody, in fact I would go so far as to say they aren’t even for me, but they are very good at what they do and damn me for even trying to criticize true artists with a vision, because I think Sceptocrypt have a definite idea of where they want to go and how to get there. ALL labels interested in progressive extreme metal please check in with this tape as Sceptocrypt may well be a force to be reckoned with in the realm of progressive metal in the very near future! – ETERNAL DARKNESS Zine #11, USA.
I can’t understand why the fuck a talented band like Sceptocrypt hasn’t been given a good deal. Labels really suck – they’re signing all the shit turning up in the underground scene and when a band made up of real musicians comes up, they ignore them…. As for Sceptocrypt, once entering in the feel of their supreme art you’ll be hooked. The songs featured here are some of the best I’ve heard in years. – MALEFICA Zine #2, Malta
Sceptocrypt aim to broaden the boandaries of death metal which they have definitely achieved! Sceptocrypt’s music is chilling, atmospheric and cinematic. Spatial dark rythms, ‘death’ vocals, sweeping guitars and violins, euphoric soprano female vocals and complex slow/fast musical structures all create the morbid, orchestral and operatic death metal sound that is uniquely Sceptocrypt. – HIDDINKULTURZ Zine #2 part 8, Scotland
Being gifted of a good technique, open-mindedness and fantasy, Sceptocrypt has never been a band like the others. Every time I have to review them, I try to encourage myself because I know they’ll give me a hard time! And the 4 new tracks for sure aren’t “easier” of the 2 ones contained on the Wild Code of Reverie demo. I just see them more dark and sometimes atmospheric, so they substantially got nearer to what I like. Part of the old material was maybe too technical, while I see on these new tracks a heavier role of feelings and atmospheres. However, this is only a rehearsal tape (but it sounds quite good!) and it’s not always possible to perceive all the nuances of a refined sound like this. There’s no doubt that a band like this one is able to turn out ideas like a volcano and probably there’s no limit that can be put to the music they do (death metal=20%, doom metal=10%, ambient=10%, all the rest… who knows?), but the songs are way too long for my tastes… I think it’s very hard to listen to all the songs in one time. Shortening the tracks would make them more accessible. Anyway, I don’t know if the tape is for sale (it’s probably destined to zines and labels only). If it isn’t, it would be a pity to miss it, ’cause there’s flashes of ingeniousness here and there. Rating: 8 – Koito On- Line Zine
Musicianship is recommended for people who stand up i.e. very mature and open-minded people, or a zine editor with 5000 bands yet no-one sounding like Sceptocrypt! – DUSK WOEROT Zine #4, Colombia
Wild Code of Reverie
debut demo 1996
“Wild Code of Reverie” (debut demo 1996)
I’ve listened to it and I like it! Really good work! – Joel Andersson, X-treme Records, Sweden
A great effort! – J.P Sammut, Toppling Colossus records
Sceptocrypt is all about one thing: Avantgardism. Their music can develop to a hell of a musical masterpiece – MorticiaNumskull Mag, NL
After hearing this tape once, I was laying knocked out under my desk. The first track, The Ancient Morning, is bursting out of its joints because of its many different styles. Death, doom, black, thrash, classic and jazz are thrown on a big heap and are molten together in a complex way. The second track Godless is a little easier, because of its slower doom passages, which are logically followed up by faster death metal passages, larded with strange atmospheric vocals and diabolic death grunts, so there is a lot of variation on this track too. The tape has a good sound and the visual graphic art is also very professional. I think the music of this Maltese band goes much too far for all pathetic mainstream listeners, but when you’re in for progressive music, this tape is a must. DEMO OF THE MONTH – AARDSCHOK Mag Nov’97 issue, Holland
This Maltese band has finally completed their debut demo, which will lead you towards rather progressive and avant-garde Metal regions. The guys have definitely succeeded in working up their influences, which include bands such as Cynic and present us a rather professional sound. Yet, the whole doesn’t really sound over-produced or something but bears a lot of atmospheric and acoustic parts, which lay somewhere between the early instrumental intros by Cathedral and the obscurity of Dead Can Dance. A few flute parts are perfectly integrated to the whole and together with some particular Doom elements they form a rather intense atmosphere and show the band’s experimental mood. And still, the double-bass attacks and excellent bass lines drive you insane with their huge aggressiveness. Not an easy listening at all and so recommended for all people who search for something really good. – FIGHT AMNESIA! Zine # 9, Germany
Sceptocrypt dispose of several great ideas and unusual moments in their music and they’re also pretty gifted musicians. The booklet is made in a very professional way and the lyrics are fantastic. To close, a hopeful future – MINAS TIRITH Zine, Czech Republic
It’s really hard stuff especially the song on the second side of your tape which has some very interesting tendencies. I like it. – The Gothic Grimoire Mag, Germany
“…when you give it a bit of space to breath they do get on with their chosen thing rather well, their music has some light and shade, some progressive structure… indeed they’re really good at their extreme metal thing. Reminds me rather of the days of Deliverance. Sceptocrypt have some kind of orchestral/Baroque texture to their sound… We shall say Sceptocrypt are rather good at their chosen art, it’s orchestral extreme metal that comes in good looking full colour package… The tracks are nice and long, plenty to get your teeth into… Good stuff for now, I dare them to fly above the limitations of their genre next time and then we may have something really worth devoting space to….“ – ORGAN Mag #51, UK
This band covers a lot of ground which makes it difficult to categorize into just one genre as because death, grind, ambient, speed, atmospheric and experimental are just a few of the styles presented here. The diversity of music and the complexity of the structures makes this not your everyday kind of metal. It requires quite a lot of plays and patience to be able to appreciate and comprehend what is featured here. I find the outcome of the demo quite exquisite. – ILL LITERATURE Mag #13, USA
I’ve been bewildered by this demo! Just two songs but very complex, long and sometimes with a jazzistic attitude that didn’t make the listening very easy. The first approach could be traumatic, but to have clear ideas about what Sceptocrypt are, you have to go on and you will slowly begin to comprehend. as these guys coming from Malta have a bunch of cool ideas. You can find many different influences here: thrash, doom, death and black and maybe something more “refined” as jazz and new age. Again they have good solutions for their music, something that the majority of underground bands have not. Recommended to open minded people who also like technical stuff. – KOITO Zine #7, Italy.
“Wild Code of Reverie” displays some strange kind of death metal. A few jazzy/fusion elements are mixed with the brutal kind of death metal where deep growls, screamy vocals and Celtic Frost-alike moaning are all present“ – MIGHTY MAG #10, Denmark
A rather professional, experimental and still brutal and heavy release has reached us from Malta. This music has punch and energy! Sceptocrypt are driven by the eclectic waves of bands such as Atheist which they combine with a wide progressive amplitude, including an occasional Cathedral touch as well as influences from Jazz, Classical music and 70`s Art Rock. The result is a very aggressive tone marked by distorted guitars which alternate with jazz chords and atmospheric parts and then reconstructed into a grind-core inferno of rare intensity. Both the drum rhythms and the guitar/bass riffs reach the state of incredibility, while the vocals range from grinding death metal parts to obscure melodies. Here and there, a symphonic/epic touch puts the band close to acts such as Elend, yet in a very original way. This is definitely one of the best demos of 1996 and we wish the band to reach the publicity they deserve.” – FIGHT AMNESIA zine # 10, Germany
I didn’t expect to hear a cocktail of such different and sophisticated music. A great dose of avantgarde and progressive metal makes the basis of the music, but it is only some of the styles that could be found in their music as SCEPTOCRYPT use not only underground styles (such as death, doom, grind, ambient, etc.) but they are not afraid to experiment with jazz, art rock and lots of atmospheric and epic introductions here. Very unique, we can praise this group for their wide musical views and for not being afraid to experiment. And there’s only one thing that I can do having listened to this tape – I can only offer you to buy it as soon as possible – DEATH BITE Zine, Lithuania
One of the most brilliant demotapes I have heard in years! How do they create songs? There is some crazy and weird stuff on it and that’s what makes it so good. I hope Sceptocrypt can score a deal.” – FANFARE Mag, Belgium
Press cuttings
These are press cuttings that have appeared over the years!
There are way more, but it calls for them being found among boxes back in Malta when Malcolm eventually visits.
Il-Mument (17.12.2023)
Interviews
If you want to interview us, feel free to read our bio to wrap up some questions to send to press@sceptocrypt.com which we’ll gladly answer. Thank you for your time!
Our 1st interview was during the 08/04/2024 edition of Rockna! The host Michael Bugeja chats to Malcolm about Sceptocrypt’s return, our current line-up, live shows and future plans. Listen at https://netondemand.mt/play/16458
As far as Sceptocrypt interviews from the 90s, these are scattered in zines in boxes between London and Malta. We will try to eventually one day upload them here. For now enjoy this only one we got scanned, from Italy’s premium mortadella dealer Koito Zine, from their 6th issue back in 1996!
