Cryptopsy – And Then You'll Beg

One of the most underrated Canadian death metal titles. I know that Lord Worm is the king in many peoples eyes, though Mike's vocal delivery on this is super powerful. Each line is abrupt and in your face. TOP NOTCH!

Cryptopsy is a band I recall first hearing at the time of their debut album, & what I recall hearing was well performed, raw underground brutal death metal, though with not so good a production. What I heard didn't impress enough to motivate me to hear more of the band at the time, when there was still a fair amount of quality death metal abound from both underground & established bands. What I then heard from Cryptopsy's subsequent two albums sounded like even better performed intense brutal death metal, with very good, much improved production, & some very impressive technicality & intensity on display. Nonetheless, it was getting to a stage where it seemed that complex song arrangements abound with intense, technical brutality was of highest priority, rather than memorable songwriting. For seasoned death metallers, a great death metal album calls for memorable riffs & song arrangements, as well as intensity & technicality, & I wasn't hearing that combination here. I even recall after hearing 'Whisper Supremacy', then hearing the latest Ritual Carnage album at the time, & how much stronger & more memorable a more old school death metal album like that sounded in comparison. Again, I wasn't so impressed by Cryptopsy's efforts to pursue hearing more from the band, despite all the acclaim they were achieving. When wanting to hear some intense, brutal technical death metal, I turned to albums of bands like Suffocation & Monstrosity rather than Cryptopsy. That brings us to their fourth album, 'And Then You'll Beg'.

With this album, I managed to acquire an official promo CD, affording a closer listen to what the band's latest album had to offer. Sure enough, the sounds that exploded from my speakers were a barrage of amazing technicality & intensity, likely second to no other death metal band I'd heard. As the album raged on, this devastatingly explosive technical brutality continued, but besides these merits, I wasn't hearing much else that impressed. For one, that lack of memorable songwriting or cohesive, meaningful song arrangements that seemed to characterising their previous album, seemed to have carried over to this one. Add to that a somewhat refined sounding production, & vocals that often crossed the boundary of death metal to metalcore, & what I was hearing again failed to motivate further listening to the band. It was quite some time before I returned to hearing this album again, so much so that I needed to refresh my memory of what I previoulsy heard, & why I didn't continue listening to the band. Well this time it didn't sound so bad. Sure enough the overwhelming complexity of the song arrangements was still the main focus in favour of cohesive, memorable songwriting, & the vocals were still needing some getting used to. This time though, I was just starting to appreciate the band's sound enough to warrant repeated listens. What is gradually evident is that this is an album that grows on the listener with repeated listens.

The first aspect to get past is the vocals. It seemed that for Cryptopsy to decide to replace Lord Worm with a vocalist like Mike DiSalvo, the band was intending to slowly shift their sound from pure brutal death metal to a hybrid of brutal death metal & extreme deathcore. That is certainly where DiSalvo's vocals are at with this album. Since I've not ever pursued listening to much deathcore or even thrashcore, I couldn't find any frame of reference to compare DiSalvo's vocals to. The most remotely close comparison I could think of was the vocal approach heard with some of the final generation of extreme underground thrash metal bands that emerged in the late 80's/early 90's, as death metal gradually usurped the extreme metal throne. Such bands often featured harsh, aggressive vocals that treaded the boundary between shouting & growling, & sometimes sounded like a more gruff & lower pitched version of Tom Araya's vocal output from Slayer's early albums. Well imagine that sort of vocal, but within a more deathcore or thrashcore context, & that is where DiSalvo's vocals are at. This frame of reference did help getting used to DiSalvo's vocal approach.

Now for the music. Repeated listens of this album reveal that Cryptopsy are in fact quite competent songwriters after all, as evidenced by numerous killer riffs that appear amongst the technical barrage throughout the songs here, it's just that the band doesn't follow that through to the song arrangements. Being highly technical metal musicians, they follow the common road for technical death or thrash & get caught in focusing on complex, chop & change songwriting, often at the expense of memorable song arrangements. Basically, the band display strong songwriting at the individual riff level, but not nearly as much at the song arrangement level. There is one exception & that is track 8, 'Back to the worms', easily the best song here, as it achieves that balance between complex, technical musicianship, & killer, memorable riffs & song composition. If only they could have achieved this with the album's remaining songs, it would have been that much better an album. As it stands, the closest they got was with track 2, 'We Bleed', where some of the remaining best riffs feature prominently.

While the over-ambitiously complex song arrangements & deathcore oriented vocals need some getting used to, & sometimes detract from the band's sound rather than add to it, this album is still a monumental recording, which sets new standards in intensity, technicality, musianship, & does offer some elements of good songwriting as well.