Review Summary: "That's it...go ahead and run! Run home and cry to mama!"
Let’s face it. Cryptopsy’s career as a whole has been less than exemplary. Their debut album “Blasphemies Made Flesh” was good, but it did not live up to their true potential. “Whisper Supremacy” and “And Then You Will Beg” were decent, but the lack of original singer Lord Worm brought them down. Even with the triumphant return of Lord Worm in 2005 could not help them. However, Cryptopsy does have one album that stands the test of time, a single album that will forever ennoble them as one of the finest death metal bands of all time. That album is called None So Vile
Cryptopsy is:
Lord Worm : Vocals
Jon Levasseur : Lead and Rhythm guitar
Eric Langlois : Bass
Flo Mounier: Drums
None So Vile is not for the faint hearted. It is easily the most intense album I have ever heard. Lord Worm’s vocal style is quite possibly the most unique in death metal. I say unique because not a single word can be understood. He does not enunciate his lyrics. He merely growls to the syllables. The result is a sort of dog bark. That is not all though. The man is the most varied extreme metal vocalist I have ever heard. Going to incredibly high screams to low dog bark growls to sounds that should not be coming out of a human body, this man has it all. But if that was not enough, the man has lungs of steel. This is exemplified on their first album with the song Open Face Surgery where he does a scream that lasts for over 40 seconds, never losing pitch and never cracking until the very end.
One thing that really impresses me with Lord Worm is his lyrics. They are your average death metal lyrics, but Lord Worm writes them with such a grace that it’s hard to believe the man is a death metal singer. This is because Lord Worm is also an English teacher for a university. The fact that he is willing to write lyrics in such an intelligent way even though you can not understand them proves his dedication to the music he is writing.
Flo Mounier’s drumming can be compared to a hail storm. You know the sound it makes when hail continuously falls on your aluminum patio? It’s like that but faster. Going from the fastest blast beats ever heard (aside from Nick Barker) to incredibly fast quick fills of every variety, the man is a demon on speed. The drums pound with such ferocity and force that sometimes it even overshadows the actual music. Some may view this as a problem, but when you are as good as Flo Mounier, it does not matter.
When combined together, along with incredibly powerful, technical guitar work and a nice heavy flow of bass, you have a monster of an album. For 34 minutes straight you are assaulted by some of the most brutal death metal ever created. But do not think you are in for just some average death metal album. It has enough variation to keep anyone interested. Switching it up constantly and keeping the music from getting boring.
Slit Your Guts is probably the finest death metal song ever written. The song starts with a searing riff that’s incredibly catchy and original. Flo’s drums are pounding away, and Lord Worm’s signature dog barks are sodomizing your ears. The riff then changes and the pace get’s faster. Halfway through the song we get treated to an incredibly awesome bass solo, followed by an incredibly heavy riff. The lyrics for this song are also incredible, and they are probably the best lyrics I have ever read. They tell a story of a man about to cut up someone who is bound down with his blade named Tuesday. This sounds like something out of a cannibal corpse song, however, it is written better than anything Chris Barnes or George Fischer could ever write. They carry such a grace; such a mastery of the English language, that it is hard to believe they are death metal lyrics.
None so Vile, as I stated before, is not for the faint of heart. It has everything that makes death metal death metal. If you do choose to listen to this, prepare your ears for a raping the likes of which they have never experienced. They will be raped, gangbanged, and molested, and they will love every second of it.
Recommended Tracks:
Slit Your Guts
Phobophile
Graves of the Fathers
Crown of Horns
