Cryptopsy – The Unspoken King
The last few months haven’t been the greatest for Cryptopsy. With a new album and expanded line-up, it should be a time of invigorated excitement for the Canadian Death Metal veterans. Instead, the band has been subject to the kind of message board crucification usually reserved for new-jack Metalcore bands. It all started when the band announced that they were looking for a front man who can sing cleanly as well as do the growling thing after fan-favorite, Lord Worm quit again. Adding a keyboardist to the stable didn’t exactly help matters either. Calling the early reviews for their new album, The Unspoken King, unkind would be an understatement of massive proportions! If anything, they’ve been scathing.
I’m not sure if the critics are listening to the same album as I am. Sure, the band has thrown in a few left-of-center moves into their musical arsenal (at least for Cryptopsy) but nothing that would justify the pounding the records gotten so far. The main point of contention would be new vocalist, Matt McGachy. Much has been said about his occasional melodic “Emo” vocal flourishes diluting the band’s heavier moments. First off, for most of the album McGachy digs deep into his larynx and spews forth line after line with a demonic growl that wouldn’t sound out of place on any of their earlier catalog entries. When the newcomer does go with his cleaner voice, it serves the arrangement well and makes for some compelling dynamics. His Chino Moreno-like wailing on “Bemoan the Martyr” offsets Alex Auburn and Christian Donaldson’s pummeling guitar parts lending a juxtaposing contrast to the track that pulls you right in.
As always, Flo Mounier’s drum performances leave the listener very little time to catch their breath. His utter command of the complex rhythm patterns is awe-inspiring. A song like “The Headsman” shifts its tempo so much; most drummers wouldn’t be able to anchor the arrangement well enough to carry the song. Mounier not only handles the task with ease, he somehow manages to let the chaotic parts flow seamlessly. Check out his Uzi-sped footwork on “Worship Your Demons” for further proof of his importance to this band.
Donaldson and
Rating: 7/10
Label: Century Media Records
Website: www.myspace.com/cryptopsy
By Carlos Ramirez
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(43 votes, average: 2.44 out of 5)
Awesome! Finally a review with the credit this album deserves. All of you who say it’s awful are just a bunch of whiners, or must be fans of the hundreds of boring generic brutal death bands out there. I’m a huge Cryptopsy fan and a Death Metal fan in general and I f*cking love this album. Big deal if they got vocals, as Carlos says it does actually give it some great dynamics. Being a fan of Cryptopsy I was pretty shocked to hear the clean singing the first time myself..but you know what..I got used to it…and now I think it suits it great. Trust me I f**cking hate emo, generic deathcore, and metalcore..this album is none of those. Do people not have an open mind these days? Or do they just go by what wikipedia tells them.
Nah, this album really does suck. It’s essentially a deathcore album with Flo Mournier and Eric Langlois on it.
Even past the nu-metal sounding clean singing, the guy sounds like a throwaway 19 year old tryout for Despised Icon. the guitar tone has no character and the riffs are uninspired.
While I liked Lord Worm he wasn’t irreplaceable… Jon Levasseur was the true loss for the band as he was the primary songwriter. Flo is a great drummer but his taste sucks and so does his writing.
The keyboardist is absolutely pointless, even moreso than the one in Opeth. And their image overall looks like it’s your average Century Media throwaway band that opens for Lacuna Coil and Leaves Eyes.
there are so many things wrong with all this, I’m just getting started. bottomline, they fucked up and a lot of you have a combination of bad taste and a desire to pull straws to defend a band that you can’t admit sucks.
I’ll admit I’m not a fan of all the breakdowns, and the clean singing caught me offguard (though I think it fits in very nicely – most of the time it’s creepy as hell), but thank you. Thank you for being enough of a man to stand up for Cryptopsy when everyone seems to have turned against them.
Long live the Unspoken King, I say.
album is fucking gay
well i only heard the song they posted on their myspace prior to it being released, i didnt think it to be that bad.
although i’ll admit I’ve never been a fan of the band, I did enjoy 3 Mile Screams latest album, Which Mcgachy is also the vocalist on.
Most of the opinions on thi site are based on opinion, so whether you like it or not is irrelevant, what makes the album a good or bad one, in my opinion, is whether
1: the band progressed
2: the songwriting is more complicated
3: the songs are catchy , or good,
4: lyrics arent as important to me, because to each listener they can mean something completely different, but they should not br jibberish, in my personal opinion
5: and yes, a good album, is just deifned as if you like it, but those are very important.
m138jewski said it best
agree with m138jewski totally fucking gay
http://www.decoymusic.com/index.php?content=reviews&reviewid=31407&oldreview=0
my thoughts
Utter garbage. Lots of gay breakdowns, guitar wankery, and the vocalist sounds like any run of the mill hardcore singer. Trash.
Fucking faggot album for fucking faggot sheep who like dogshit like this.
Hey, look at it this way, after so many bands of 19-year-olds released one deathcore record after another, starting a trend, selling tons of merch, exploiting the genre, to me cryptopsy’s the unspoken king is somehow saying: “Fuck you all, you suckers, cryptopsy’s killing you all.” That’s what cryptopsy do with the record, they kill hundreds of these so-called throwaway bands, reduce them to ashes. And besides, i always liked cryptopsy much, musically, but the singers always sucked. who are you to fucking judge them?
Actually Lord Worm was an amazing vocalist, and cryptopsy is not saying fuck you to anyone, they’re just joining the crowd. And who am I to judge them? I am someone who has standards, and doesn’t like getting spoon fed shitty music packaged as something of value.
First off as a metal vocalist, i can safely say that Lord Worm was one of the worst vocalists I’ve ever heard. Any of you ignorent retards who say otherwise should go buy a Hate Eternal CD or a fuckin Brain Drill cd. That is how to do a death metal scream.
Yeah, the new guy uses the “metalcore” creaming style, (that is to say not all gutteral, with some actual RANGE), but the new guy is way better anyway and the new music is different and pretty sick. Fuck Lord Worm, and fuck all you elitist fucks
STFU Fallover, you want to participate in a 5 way bukkake gang bang with the new Cryptopsy from the sound of it.
all im saying is that ur all a bunch of cry baby faggots
metal heads are mostly pussies, they whine and cry so much about lame stuff… That’s so brutal, blah , blah.
There is NOTHING brutal about metal. Blast beats, downtuned guitars , screaming and grindcore drumming are not brutal, it’s not dark in any way. It’s a gay(literally and figuratively) and image based. I’m so sick of it.
There are acoustic singer songwriters 100x more brutal than any stupid wannabe metal band.
Remember it’s all just music, for entertainment purposes.
and BTW if this offended you in any way, it just proves my point!!!!!
even tho And Then You’ll Beg is still my fav Cryptopsy album, and one of my fav metal albums, Unspoken King is still heaps good. The band has progressed while still keeping things brutal as, it would be worse if they just released the same material as they have before. Besides, Once Was Not was a pretty poor album, production wasnt great, i didnt think the material was that good, and Lord Worm… Lord Worm sounds like a 16yr old kid trying to whisper death metal growls into a mic while his parents are asleep in the next room. He has no volume, no projection, no clarity, he is seriously shit. Im with Fallover, one of the worst death metal vocalists ever. Unspoken King, not their best album but definitely a step up after Once Was Not.
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the guitar isn’t clear, the drum and bass are too loud
some songs are good, some songs are just pointless
i would’ve loved to hear more experimenting with the keyboards and sampling
barely any of it
but on the bright side
the lead singer is amazing
at some points, he makes the song sound like something out of a deftones album
flo is sicker than ever
eric sounds alot better
it’s a good album
deathcore + nu-metal
original shit