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1994. Blasphemy Made Flesh

is the debut album by band Cryptopsy.

Cryptopsy was formed in 1988 by drummer Mike Atkin, guitarist Steve Thibault and vocalist Dan Greening (who would later take the name "Lord Worm" because he would dig up and ingest worms on stage) under the name "Necrosis". John Todds later joined on bass.

this is a classic album with some of Cryptopsy’s best material. and is a must for any fan of great riffs, raw vocals, and a great rhymes section. Together they makes one of the best albums in the brutal death metal scene along with the follow-up None So Vile.

Lord Worm Jon Levasseur Steve Thibault Martin Fergusson Flo Mounier

#Cryptopsy #Blasphemy Made Flesh #Lord Worm #Jon Levasseur #Steve Thibault #Martin Fergusson #Flo Mounier #1994

Versus iTunes #18: Cryptopsy's "None So Vile"

I had something different in mind at first for today, but moods are a fickle mistress, so this week... FUCKING BRUTALCAVEINTHESKULLOFYOURENEMYWITHAROCK DEATH METAL! My introduction to death metal comes largely from a close friend of mine who was getting into the genre I was getting into metal in general. Every week he would be buying tons of death metal CDs from the local now-defunct record shop, barely having time to keep up with listening to them as they piled higher. The general theory behind his purchasing of so many death metal records seemed have sprung from the basic truth that few genres are filled with as many technicians, each seeming to be able to use the stable trappings of their musical choice and then delve into a world of twisting time signatures, atonal high speed riffs and rapidly oscillating solos, giving each song a similar feel but a distinct flavor. Yet, for all the talent that goes into making a death metal recording, it is viewed as such an outsider style by most, depending upon a certain type of listener who is willing to unravel its confrontation and look deep into the maelstrom to find the beating heart which is so filled with chaos. Cryptopsy's None So Vile is one such record, having stood above many in my friend's collection and became one his templars of what makes death metal so great.

Starting off with a primal roar, None So Vile is an exercise in rawness. From top to bottom each moment of the album is about experiencing the pure visceral nature of the band’s sound, slowly drawing you into the same nightmarish landscape they inhabit. I usually talk about good things first to butter people up for the bad but I think this might be a good time to reverse this. My biggest overall problem with None So Vile comes from the production of the album. Like most death metal in the 90s, Cryptopsy comes from a background in creating underground mix tapes to circulate between bands, resulting in a certain expectation of sound degradation. This carried over for a lot of bands when they were actually able to sit down and hammer out their ideas in actual recording studio. None So Vile has a weird disparateness in the sound of the instruments being played, highlighting the gaps volume between the varying instruments. Rarely does it feel like all the parts are being played on the same song, creating these places where you can trace the artifice of totality slipping away which ends up lightening the overall experience. A song like “Slit Your Guts,” which features prominent individual parts from the different instruments requires us to believe that instruments are merely slipping out of the song for a second to paint their own twisted vision of the overall thematic concern, but since we are always hearing them separated out in the mix it ends up feeling weird and off-putting… well, not in the same way the rest of the music is supposed to. The weird thing is that this works for certain songs on the album, as that kind of distant echo of instruments can create a more brutal sound, one that acts as blunt force trauma raging against your eyes. “Graves of the Fathers” works on this principle, as even the guitar seems to lose its melodic drive in favor of creating entirely huge blocks of rhythm laid against the drums to create these massive explosions, these moments that sound like coming torrent of war. With a little separation in the mix it gives us a chance to appreciate the more focused sound and hear distinctly what each instrument is playing since they’re all working with the same idea. But so many of the songs on None So Vile are exercises in wonderful technical mastery, the different instruments creating diverging lines that are meant to intertwine each other at various points and create a further dissonance when separated. With the mix left so sterile it makes it difficult to connect them back as one larger piece of thought and even loud volumes do little to save this.

And this feeds back into my other problem with None So Vile, which is vocalist Lord Worm. It feels weird to criticize a death metal vocalist, because death growls are a really love ‘em or hate ‘em sort of deal and for the most part I appreciate the powerful statement that is given by that animalistic understanding of the music’s power. But Lord Worm is just a very uninteresting vocalist. Don’t get me wrong, I think he is way better than Mike DiSalvo ever was for the band, but Worm doesn’t seem capable of really making the vocals on None So Vile do anything for the song. His range, even for a growl, is weirdly limited, as if he is having trouble giving each song a distinct flavor that makes it feel intense and directed from a specific dark place. This is not at all helped by the general lack of variety in his rhythm, which always seems to hit that “word every half beat” style that allows for a little separation between individual words, but doesn’t give us a chance to see how this particular moment fits in with the varying influence of the other instruments being played. He has some really stellar overall moments on the record that immediately draw notice, such as on “Benedictine Convlusions,” which shows off a bigger range. The song features him hit both fevered scream and that weird dripping evil of black metal vocals all at once, giving us more interesting noises to show the confrontational nature and above all else, hauntedness that is being created with in the cathedral of drum and guitar. It ends up being a much stronger vocal record on the second half, which really leads me back to the production as the problem. I know the words of death metal are staggered screams of consciousness vomited back into the face of the listener who has allowed them to happen, but without some intelligibility in the presentation that end up falling flat and make that Othering of the human voice come off as hollow and without point.

So if I dislike that what do I like? The answer could easily just be said as “everything else.” None So Vile is a record that doesn’t allow you to rest or try to understand it but instead constantly twists back around on you, always getting directly into your face and making you stare back at your own reflection its eyes. I like the precarious game the band plays, as we have an expectation that death metal will be the ultimate landscape of harshness, the blighting of all things beautiful, yet the band isn’t simply trying to make loud, angry sounds. Cryptopsy is one of those great groups of technicians where you can really sense that every instrumentalist is immensely talented and could just easily show off their talents for a whole record without a thought to songwriting. Yet, their songs are so weirdly tight in their construction, coiling around you until it’s too late to realize that you’ve fallen under their spell. I trashed “Slit Your Guts” production, but it is truly one of the great masterpieces of technical death metal as each member seems intent on making the song’s title literal. Guitarist Jon Levasseur creates these driving needles, not so much thread as bloody tattoo ink, always seeming to be off in tone but close enough that you can recognize its sound. His guitar slingshots back and forth to the brinks of different carnality, always hammering in these blocks of riffs before suddenly hitting this jaw dropping sweep pick. Levasseur is never staying in one place with his playing and you just want to see where the train of thought is going next. And I will always appreciate a song where I can actually hear the bass. I don’t want so pretend like Eric Langlois is the most talented bass player in the world but his rhythm is more tightly locked than the drums on this one, which makes it all the more surprising when the rest of the song drops out and he plays that atonal bass solo which immediately summons that feeling of isolation. It’s a perfect moment of surprise, a moment where you don’t expect to hear the brutality give way to the strangeness of it all, giving the already nightmarish music a feeling of aloneness.

And oh goddamn the drums. Flo Mounier really seals the deal on “Slit Your Guts” because of just how controlled his chaos is, like an octopus beating every drum at once as fast you can so its so loud you can’t think. But you can think and it’s just aggressive and satisfying because its working through all the aggression for you, getting you back to those primal distant calls of drums from time immemorial. Mounier, for me, is the highlight of this record. Please note that I do not say this lightly. I play both bass and guitar and can do vocals on occasion, so drums have never been the most important instrument to me in music listening, but Mounier hooks you in and gives you that satisfaction of confrontation, that attack on the central nervous system that makes it difficult to understand what you’re feeling but that apex of feeling that you need to. The immediate thing I noticed was how much Mounier incorporates splash cymbals into his playing, which isn’t something I normally associate with death metal, what with blast beats usually utilizing bass drums and snare to exclusion. Cymbals have such a natural vibrance to them, but here they become monstrous, the death knells sounding in the distance. It creates these imeddiate flashes of attention to something you’re hoping can lift you towards the light but is revealed to be just as dark as the rest of it. Songs like “Phobopile,” which are so technical in their execution become all the more chaotic through his playing, but he finds the ley lien that brings it all back together, giving you at least something to headbang to or jump around in spastic flails, as his snare fills create moments of spurious attack. I can’t really go too much longer with this because the obvious technical skill he possesses manages to always come back into traumatic brutality, and there’s only so many ways to say that it is what inspires the songs to match ferocity.

None So Vile is not for the weak of heart or even those with a mostly functioning one. It is an excessive record about all those things we try to buy within ourselves laid out in sonic form. Cryptopsy manages to be both brutal and technical in degrees and you’re always wondering how idea might switch within a song. Though the production fails it and their vocalist does at times as well, it is one of the all-time great death metal records.

Is It Guitar Pornography?: It is going to be a rare day when I don’t lay this mantle on the backs of a death metal group. Death metal is probably THE place to go for instruments based totally on technical skill and the guitar is a major part of this.

Who I’d Recommend It To: People with problems who need to work them out and those who just want an outlet for all their energy. Fans of Meshuggah, Immolation, Necrophagist and most shockingly of all, Krzysztoff Penderecki, because I always associate death metal with modern classical since both about getting outside what makes you comfortable. Those who just want to shake their whole bodies and those who need purporseful white noise. Fans of music theory and those into it simply for the power it gives. Anyone who needs to be shaken from a rut or wants to shake others out of theirs. And maybe, just maybe… those who need a first death metal album to give to someone.

An Arbitrary Rating: 8.5/10

Favorite Track: Phobophile