When one ponders on the absolute best albums Willowtip has to offer, several come to mind but few actually make the final cut - Arsis's A Celebration of Guilt, Watchmaker's Erased from the Memory of Man, and Crowpath's Son of Sulphur are arguably the pinnacles of the label. Well, add Odious Mortem's Cryptic Implosion to that elite list. Specifically, the band's sophomore album is an...Read More

Cryptic Implosion is a brutal dose of technical death metal. The guitar work is really good with vicious riffs and solos that are creative and compelling. Watchtower and Spastic Ink guitarist Ron Jarzombek guests on the album's final song. Odious Mortem also nearly pummels the listener into oblivion with crushing blast beats and low end devastation. This is not by-the-numbers death metal....Read More

After their debut album, Devouring the Prophecy on Unique Leader records, what could be a better fit than signing to Willowtip records, already the home to other such masters of technical brutality such as Gorod, Dim Mak, Illogicist Carpharnaum, and delivering Willowtip's first, eagerly awaited release of 2007? Plying a similar form of complex yet, absorbable and solo filled savagery as...Read More

It was back in 2004 when I first heard this band, I remember they sounded incredibly promising yet a little unpolished; the hype for Odious Mortem grew enormously through the years, all of a sudden everyone was eagerly waiting for their Willowtip Debut, the underground act immediately made a lot of noise with their new label of course, and finally the album's out, we can finally see if all...Read More

Why is it that everytime I come across an album from Willowtip Records, I find myself completely blown away? I just don't understand how a label can be so consistant with the type of stuff they sign. With that being said, the same applies for the label's newest digit Odious Mortem. Except this time around, I feel I can better explain such a band with influences or cross-referenced bands...Read More

Anyone that has spent any amount of time with the technically proficient extreme bands on the Willowtip roster will not be surprised to find out that "Cryptic Implosion" from Santa Cruz, California's ODIOUS MORTEM is a awe-inspiring slab of accomplished death metal aggression. Jumping from well-respected death metal label Unique Leader to the always consistent Willowtip, ODIOUS MORTEM...Read More

I'm getting really tired of death metal, a sub-genre I thought I would cherish for years to come, as everything just sounds the same to me these days. So I find myself sticking to the bands that got me into the style of music in the first place, rarely expecting a new band I take the time to investigate to encourage me to burn holes in my wallet afresh. Odious Mortem don't really...Read More

While recently many popular mid/upper tier forerunners of the death metal scene are putting out killer albums in 2007, the early buzz band has been Santa Cruz, California five-piece kill team, Odious Mortem. When it comes to high velocity technical death metal, some of us argue it's difficult to follow and sounds soulless, which is exactly what others find quite appealing. Cryptic Implosion...Read More

It is common Hessian knowledge, with the exception of a few select bands, that the United States has nothing extraordinary to offer when it comes to dark experimental death metal. (I think the nations of Scandinavia currently hold the brutal death title for the past 25 years and counting.) However, if there is one band that can easily hold their own against this claim, it is Odious Mortem....Read More

The latest from the mighty Willowtip is "Cryptic Implosion", the sophomore full-length from Odious Mortem, who I don't believe I had ever heard prior to this. To be honest with you I really haven't been feeling much death metal lately - new, old, whatever. I don't know why. So there's nothing about " Cryptic Implosion" that really blows me away or anything, but there are...Read More

Impressive, very impressive. But somehow I care very little. You literally have to have very good ears (or a lot of patience) to appreciate stuff this brutal. Literally, Cryptic Implosion's best stuff is buried amidst so much music. Sure, for those simply seeking the mind-dumbing ride of brutal death metal music will get tons of it here, but those who look beyond...Read More

Not quite as chaotic as Beneath the Massacre, less labyrinthine than Psyopus and not nearly as eccentric as Neuraxis, California quintet Odious Mortem has staked themselves out a comfortable niche in the technical death realm on their spellbinding Willowtip debut. When it comes to a style of music as impenetrable as this, a band has to find some way to set itself apart from the rest of...Read More

Hailing from the fertile Santa Cruz death metal scene, Odious Mortem are an extreme death metal act whose speed and ability rivals most of their peers and influences. Though they share a hometown (and now a drummer) with their heroes Decrepit Birth, the band has always had their own style and with the release of Cryptic Implosion, they've definitely come into their own. The album...Read More