Cryptopsy - Blasphemy Made Flesh
Review: As death metal grew into an accepted style, the question of new directions became heavy and Cryptopsy thrust against it one effort, in Blasphemy Made Flesh, to resurrect the blasting intensity and ferocity that death metal originally had, but in a time when music is faster and more violent as a whole.
Their music, with its long blast beat sequences and dark recursions into structural destruction, brings a fervent expression of bitter humans feeding off of a self-destructing universe enslaved to concrete aggression. Underneath a grunting, forced vocal beats heavy inertial rhythm and varied but classic death/speed metal guitar: much downstroke percussive strumming alternating with tearing streams of chords. The band crests the edge of technicality but pursue a goal of depravity beyond that simple classification, emphasizing speed technique and churning textures of riff in death metal with strong heavy metal roots.
There are periodic lulls but they are artistically used; 'unrelenting' would be a good adjective, as these pause for breath as the aerobic assault resumes. With this and the similarities in percussive style in mind, many would file Cryptopsy as a Suffocation clone, but analysis of the music reveals this to be deficient in structural and rhythmic comparison. Suffocation break their rhythms into cycles and responses, where Cryptopsy use the simpler technique of more linear rhythms interacting only at the level of the song as a whole.
Patterns of classic death metal in a cognitively linked riff salad permeate the music of Cryptopsy where Suffocation use speed metal/death metal hybrid song constructions of even divisions in an extension of Slayer, Sepultura, Deicide and Morpheus Descends. For Cryptopsy innovation comes in the development of an acerbic almost technical style while retaining the brutal classic death metal foundation that makes this music scary to outsiders, leaving composition at a level some generations behind for the state of death metal at the time of this release.
In pursuing some of the ideals of Suffocation and other extreme classic bands - emphasis on impact, recursive rhythm, complexity, and expressiveness - Cryptopsy have leapt over the clone barrier and surpassed the lackluster performers in this zone of music. While their songwriting skills linger, it may be only a matter of time. For the interim, Blasphemy Made Flesh provides what death metal needs: a resurrection of its raw spirit and energy to be channeled into forms new and old.