Cryogen “Despara” Write-up in Westword Magazine

Ah, it’s refreshing to know that as frenzied as life can sometimes be,
some things remain ever constant. In defiance of fair weather trends,
Denver is still a hotbed for metal, and Dave Otero still has a hand in
producing some of the best music coming out of here. For evidence, look
no further than the latest effort from Cryogen, Despara,
released yesterday on Dark Millennium Records. In what’s steadily
becoming a welcome trend locally, the outfit is streaming the entire EP
on its MySpace page,
allowing fans to sample the goods before forking over their hard earned
loot to pick up the disc. And we all know that metal fans are among the
remaining contingent that still buy albums, right? Good move.

Impeccably recorded at Otero’s Flatline Audio studio, Despara, the follow-up to Psalms of Deceit,
of which the outfit sold a thousand copies, is an exercise in sheer
brooding brutality. If dual leads and otherwise precision guitar work,
machine gun rhythms and scathingly guttural vocals put a smile on your
face, Cryogen has just what you’re looking for and more, particularly
on tracks such as “Mirror Entropy,” which bolsters the blistering leads
with a anamolous, unexpected classical interlude. Give the record a
spin and then catch Cryogen with such like minded acts Immortal
Dominion and Walk the Dead at the Cork in Fort Collins on Sunday,
November 8, and then again at 12 Volt Tavern on Saturday, November 21,
with Conspiracy Assassins and Hate By Example.

-Dave Herrera

link to article