CRYPTOPSY — Blasphemy Made Flesh (review)

CRYPTOPSY — Blasphemy Made Flesh album cover

Album · 1994 · Technical Death Metal

4/5 · 2019-12-13
siLLy puPPy

With a debut album that appeared in 1994, it may seem that CRYPTOSY came late to the death metal party but this early pioneer of old school death metal which emerged from Montreal, Quebec actually started out as early as 1988. In April of that year drummer Mike Atkin, guitarist Steve Thibault and vocalist Dan Greening better known as Lord Worm formed a band called Obsessive Compulsive Disorder but quickly decided that the moniker was not metal enough and switched to the more suitable Necrosis. Bassist John Todd then joined and then like any good death metal band, released a bunch of demos and went through turbulent changes. Around 1993 Kevin Weagle joined on bass to release the demo “Ungentle Exhumation” ended up on Gore Records and then caught the attention of the German label Invasion Records.

Invasion Records folded due to financial difficulties and the big shakeup occurred. Weagle was replaced by Martin Fergusson, Atkin was replaced by drummer Flo Mounier and and lead guitarist John Levasseur also jumped on board. This left guitarist Steve Thibault and vocalist Lord Worm as the only founding members and the lineup that recorded the band’s debut full-length release BLASPHEMY MADE FLESH, the only album with this lineup as Fergusson would leave after the tour and become replaced by Eric Langlois who would define the classic CRYPTOSY sound. A lot had changed in the world of death metal since the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder days. Death metal started out as a more brutal form of thrash metal with more depraved vocals but by 1994 when this album debuted the style had seen the advent of the extreme brutality ushered in by Suffocation as well as a new form of technical wizardry pioneered by later Death releases, Atheist and Cynic. CRYPTOSY adopted both aspects.

BLASPHEMY MADE FLESH in many ways is simply a more spruced up take on early death metal and in the process debuted at a time when the death metal scene was starting to go stale. While CRYPTOSY checked off all the death metal attributes such as heavy down-tuned guitar riffs at a million miles per second, incessant percussive mania from Mounier and the depraved guttural growls of Lord Worm, the band had obviously paid attention to what was going on in the death metal underground. While not so technical sounding compared to modern standards, CRYPTOSY took the old school death metal chugs, added a few Morbid Angel squeals and created an even more labyrinthine parade of caustic distortion fueled rampages that ranged from spot on tightness with the instrumental interplay to more sloppy segments of raw lo-fi ferocity. Album number one was made on a budget and the production as a result is quite primitive but given the ugly bestial nature of this album, it actually works quite well IMHO.

What’s unique for BLASPHEMY and an annoyance for some is the excessive use of snare drums for a percussive beat however personally it doesn’t bother me so much. While incessant, even dissonant metal rage is the norm, there is an underlying melodic flow to the compositions which are only exposed as the veil thins such as at the beginning of “Serial Messiah” which begins with a short keyboard run as well as the wailing guitar solos that sporadically pop up offering neoclassical wankery in melancholic minor-key melodies most pronounced on the album’s closer “Pathological Frolic” which would be a major influence on future artists like Necrophagist. Also interesting is how this album sounds a few years older than it is as the chugging riffs often sound like peak era Pantera on album’s like “Cowboys From Hell” with that groove metal swagger. Possibly due to the build up of material.

All in all, i find BLASPHEMY MADE FLESH to be quite the competent debut album with an incessant primeval rawness that made early death metal so fucking cool. The tracks zigzag around like a flaming colony of lemmings jumping over the cliff and into the sea and its not too difficult to hear why Mounier is considered one of the fastest drummers of the era as his frenetic percussive bombast is the backbone for the intense rhythmic drive which the guitars and bass are merely under his gravitational pull. While CRYPTOSY would continue on and see more changes with more polished albums, this one stands tall and proud as the fierce DIY project that generated a wealth of catchy cool death metal tracks straddling the old school by then traditions and pioneering the brave new world of tech death laced with brutality. Solid. And yeah the original freaky eye album cover is the best one!