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Cryptopsy: ...and then you'll beg

29/03/13 || The Duff

My review of “Whisper Supremacy” was not the most coherent of pieces I’ve written, but one of the main points I wanted to get across was that the album was a cross of Cryptopsy spaziness, classic Cryptopsy riffing and regular hardcore of a Cryptopsy vein. Of course, an album that sounds like Cryptopsy in a way only the band can deliver, an absurdly cacophonous tech death metal album (featuring one new ‘barking’ vocalist) that had some generic influences melded quite brilliantly while straying some from the old, classic formula of albums that set them in stone as a leading death metal outfit.

“… And Then You’ll Beg” is the continuation of the band’s line-up and sound of death metal plus hardcore from “Whisper Supremacy”, and sees the band making their music more cogent but also more streamlined. The thing with records like “None So Vile” is that it was pure death metal, yet the riffing (especially the breakdowns) was something pretty much entirely unique to the band. Such riffs still make an appearance on “… And Then You’ll Beg”, but once more influences altogether more brutish, blunt make an appearance, and to some it may come as unwelcome. Me personally, I fucking love this era of the band simply for its eclectic mix of groove, tech and absurdity, and so urge anyone into purely quality metal to persevere.

Onwards, we have nine tracks that are essentially mini-death metal journeys of ugly and musical sweet-sweet-Heaven. The musicianship is off the charts, really one of the few Cryptopsy albums where Flo’s drumming is less of an obvious worthy-of-splurge over, the balance between each musician has been finely struck. That said, Flo absolutely dominates here, he doesn’t hold back in the slightest as I may think him on the latest, self-titled record. I’m guessing with ageing comes a restraint, less of a desire to bust-a-nut over everything, but honestly, Flo has always fit over the music he has played, and here the quality, the voracity, the insanity and the dexterity/control with which he plays is staggering.

So maybe with the latest, the more song-oriented tracks with classic Cryptopsy riffing was a factor, and I can certainly understand that; with the departure of Levasseur, the band lost something, those angular, ferocious, infectious riffs (and of course note-for-note perfectly phrased leads); this is not the case on “… And Then You’ll Beg”, which spits, starts and stops with exceptionally creative, sporadic arrangements, all aligned by true painstaking procedure and experience. As I said, miniature death metal journeys, merged with hardcore riffs that belong beautifully with this incarnation of the band, and not just because of the vocals; it is in the timing, the delivery of complex, unusual and no-frills bluntness, when to tighten and when to let breathe.

A new kind of tech brutal death metal, Cryptopsy’s legacy was to come to an end with “… And Then You’ll Beg” I think, although some might argue “Once Was Not” to be a classic record, it is in the absolute excessiveness of this record and “Whisper Supremacy” that was never touched upon in later years, even though the quality of the riffs of their first two records had been abandoned some by this point in Cryptopsy’s career. Not short of detractors, I think largely because of DiSalvo’s hardcore barking, I find no fault personally in the content of the music, and would recommend this to anyone just as much as “None So Vile”, a peak of the metal scene.

Information
Released: 2000
Label: Century Media Records
Website: cryptopsy.ca
Band
Mike DiSalvo: vocals
Flo Mounier: drums, vocals
Éric Langlois: bass
Jon Levasseur: guitars
Alex Auburn: guitars, vocals

Tracklist
01. …and Then It Passes
02. We Bleed
03. Voice of Unreason
04. My Prodigal Sun
05. Shroud
06. Soar and Envision Sore Vision
07. Equivalent Equilibrium
08. Back to the Worms
09. Screams Go Unheard

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