Review Summary: Cryptopsy continue down the path to redemption.
Since the universally panned
The Unspoken King, Canadian death metal juggernauts Cryptopsy have been on a slow but steady path to redemption. The band’s 2012 self-titled featured the return of their greatest asset, guitarist Jon Levasseur and his effortless ability to coalesce melody and technicality in a way that’s both structurally coherent and mind-fuckingly insane. Suffice it to say, it blew
The Unspoken King out of the water. Since then, Levasseur made another departure and left the group with a decent template on how to get back on the horse, and on their latest EP,
The Book of Suffering – Tome 1, it sounds like the band is following said template step by step.
For starters, Cryptopsy decided to take baby steps rather than giant leaps.
Tome 1 is the first in a presumably long line of EPs the band has planned in order to make and put out music quicker. It’s a good strategy since even the band’s most successful LPs barely grazed the 30-minute mark. Now what we have is controlled chaos in the form of an easily digestible four track EP. The upside to this strategy is that there are no filler tracks, each of the four bringing a plethora of fresh new riffs and grooves to the table and none of them posing as an obvious weak link. Bookends ‘Detritus (The One They Kept)’ and ‘Framed by Blood’ both include trademark Cryptopsy moments, the former with its droning ominous breakdown and the latter’s flirtation with harmonic leads between spastic barrages of discordant mayhem.
The downside is the lack of variety and absence of Levasseur’s signature riffing style. Mind you, Cryptopsy do throw everything and the kitchen sink at you in terms of loud, brash brutality, but the dynamics, the off-kilter jazz breaks, the elaborate chord progressions, and hell, the overall personality of the band seems to be lost in translation without him steering the ship. Christian Donaldson can certainly hold is own, especially when paired with newcomer Oliver Pinard who’s just another in the band’s long line of immensely talented bassists, but it’s simply not the same. Thankfully they play to their strengths, never drifting too far off the beaten path a la
TUK; rather, keeping the focus on meaty grooves and sprinkles of melody to glue it all together.
It’s hard to fault
Tome 1 for its shortcomings because it accomplishes everything it sets out to do. At a mere 17-minutes, the EP swiftly and effectively bashes your face in with aggressive death metal from start to finish. Matt McGachy is getting more and more comfortable as the band’s vocalist, bringing various screaming techniques to the table as opposed to his one-note growling on the self-titled album, and Flo Mounier continues to decimate behind the drum kit like it’s the mid ‘90s.
The Book of Suffering proves that even without Levasseur, Cryptopsy can sound like a cohesive unit; a well-oiled machine to serve your technical death metal cravings one riff at a time, and if this first chapter is any indication, we can look forward to Cryptopsy slowly but surely climbing back up on their throne as one the kings of death metal once again.
Now, you die...
