Tasmania is known for two things; the Tasmanian Devil and having produced one of the leaders of the modern death metal scene, Psycroptic. Since their formation in 1999, the band have constantly evolved and broken through the boundaries that the genre can sometimes impose upon itself. With the release of their seventh studio album, As The Kingdom Drowns, an album of riff-filled, technical ecstasy, Psycroptic just may have outdone the devil.

Formed by brothers Dave and Joe Haley, Psycroptic have always lived in that very small space between technical and metal. The over the top insanity peaked with their sophomore album, 2006’s Symbols of Failure. From there the band looked to smooth things out a bit, whether it was with some ambience or industrial elements in 2008’s Ob(Servant) or focusing in on the groove on 2012’s, The Inherited Repression. 2015’s Psycroptic seemed to encompass all that the band had done, so where does one go from there? For the band, it was somewhat easy.

The self-titled album gave the band a new and solid platform to launch off of, making experimentation easier. The hard part was where to go and just how far to take it. Singer, Jason Peppiatt comments, “As always with this band we wanted it to have the distinctive sound of a Psycroptic album but wanted to push ourselves further with adding new elements and having a darker vibe than on previous releases. I think we achieved our goal and this is something we are all very proud of!”