UMUR
"Cryptopsy" is the self-titled 7th full-length studio album by Canadian death metal act Cryptopsy. The album was released by Cryptopsy/Defen Society in association with Revolution Harmony/Candlelight Records in September 2012.
Cryptopsy are widely perceived as one of the leading technical death metal acts on the scene and especially the band´s second full-length studio album "None So Vile (1996)" are often mentioned as the band´s finest achivement. They´ve released quite a few other great albums over the years though, but they hit a brick wall when they released the controversial "The Unspoken King (2008)". Fans and critics alike found the more metalcore oriented sound of that album a far stretch from what they expected from the band and Cryptopsy suffered quite a bit of harsh criticism because of that. Maybe that´s why this self-titled album is more in the technical death metal style again.
The music on the 8 track, 34:53 minutes long album is brutal, fast and technical death metal with the occasional progressive twist. The latter mostly in the shape of rather awkwardly placed jazzy sections. Brutal technical death metal which abruptly shifts gear into smooth jazz sections and back into brutal technical death metal territories again is something that seldom works wonders unless you have a very open mind for such experiments. To me it almost completely spoils the dark and intense atmosphere of the album and my listening experience suffers from it. If the jazzy sections had been more well incorporated to the tracks it might have worked better, but they appear out of nowhere in the middle of intense death metal sections and I think it´s an odd choice to include them. The rest of the music is basically tech death metal heaven. Extremely fast and varied drumming by the prolific Flo Mounier, razor sharp and inventive riffing and brutal growling vocals.
If you can look past the rather awkward combination of brutal technical death metal and jazz or maybe even enjoy the combination of the two styles, "Cryptopsy" is actaully quite the treat. It´s well produced, very well played and well written too. I just wish they had kept it more basic and hadn´t branched out into jazz territory. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is warranted.