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Cryptopsy - The Unspoken King review



Reviewer:
5.0

210 users:
5.04
Band: Cryptopsy
Album: The Unspoken King
Release date: May 2008


01. Worship Your Demons
02. The Headsmen
03. Silence The Tyrants
04. Bemoan The Martyr
05. Leach
06. The Plagued
07. Resurgence Of An Empire
08. Anoint The Dead
09. Contemplate Regicide
10. Bound Dead
11. (Exit) The Few

Cryptopsy are a household name when it comes to brutal death metal, and for five albums over the past fourteen years that is exactly what they delivered. Until now. Lord Worm is out of the band, replaced by metalcore vocalist Matt McGachy and for the first time in the band's history a keyboard player, Maggie Durand, is introduced to the ranks. Musically Cryptopsy are a completely different band, shedding their brutal death metal skins and wriggling towards the metalcore whilst still keeping some technical death metal ties.

No longer is Cryptopsy the intense brutal assault of death metal that made them so popular, but a band of different direction and purpose. With the movement towards metalcore comes the introduction of clean vocals, bad breakdowns and feigned emotion; elements that at one time never existed in the same spectrum as Cryptopsy.

Cryptopsy are by all means still an extreme metal band, and still pull off a technical form of death metal very well with Flo Mounier's distinctive radical drumming, albeit under a rather tinny and mechanical production. The album opens with "Worship Your Demons"; a great rush of power through Flo's drumming and at various points during the album there are still moments where you cannot help but be impressed through moments of drumming bliss or the odd interesting twist such as with "Leach", but musically the band appear somewhat confused as we swing from bursts of technical death metal excellence to either slow and meaningless, drawn out passages of nothingness or unoriginal and tedious breakdowns.

New vocalist Matt McGachy introduces a new perspective and dimension to Cryptopsy with truly cringeworthy shrieking screams, universally embarrassing clean vocals, see "Bemoan The Martyr" and "The Plagued", and his own take on the death metal growl that sound dry and hollow as well being as deep and guttural as the keyboards are useful on "The Unspoken King", not very at all.

The album sounds like it was written by businessmen, and bad businessmen at that. The change in style brings comparisons to other bands in the metalcore scene, that play this kind of music better and already have experience and established fans where Cryptopsy do not. The whole "...Unspoken King" mockery sounds so disingenuous and false you cannot blame some people for raising the sell-out-alert flag as apposed to the musical-progression flag.

"The Unspoken King" is a different style of metal from a different Cryptopsy while still under the same name. The album shows flashes of the greatness that is mainly through Flo's arm and foot work and the slight progressive touch that was also hinted on in the band's last album, but this album will not appeal to anyone it is supposed to. This sub-par attempt at a majorly different area of metal will leave Cryptopsy in no-man's-land having only angered previous fans and gained no new fans.





Written on 22.04.2008 by Member of Staff since 2006

Staff review by
jupitreas
Rating:
N/A
In what is likely to be the single most shocking event on the scene this year, longtime brutal death metal stalwarts Cryptopsy decided to reinvent themselves as crazy jacks-of-all-trades for their latest release, The Unspoken King. Nevertheless, this album shouldn't get buried by the chaos that will certainly ensue amongst old fans and other more orthodox death metal types. This is because it is just too good to be mired by ridiculous genre discussions.

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published 17.04.2008 | Comments (122)


Comments

Comments: 16   Visited by: 440 users
22.04.2008 - 07:00
Clintagräm
Shrinebuilder
Well, I was listening to a few tracks from 'None So Vile' a bit earlier, and compared with "Worship Your Demons" (sadly the only song I've heard) it seems like it's a total different band. I was never a big fan of Cryptopsy, but it seems odd to me they would take such a huge leap. I mean, it's no Yattering (III) but perhaps they just wanted to try something new. Perhaps a reaction to the rising Deathcore scene? Or maybe they were sick of going nowhere with their brand of Death Metal? Not sure, but I'm still very interested in hearing this album in full.
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The force will be with you, always.
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22.04.2008 - 13:49
Leading The Rats
Account deleted
Written by Clintagräm on 22.04.2008 at 07:00

Perhaps a reaction to the rising Deathcore scene? Or maybe they were sick of going nowhere with their brand of Death Metal? Not sure, but I'm still very interested in hearing this album in full.

First I thought "wtf is this guy talking about?", but actually I agree. After the first two albums and lord worm's leaving, cryptopsy could just have splitten up, because anything they've released since 1996 was just shit, or decent. but this album isn't a reaction to anything, it's a) for the money or b) they've run out of ideas.

as for the review, this is one of the few reviews on this site i can agree with.

this album is pure utter-shit, but yet it has some good moments in it, especially the drumming, which is no surprise though.. anyway, i rate it a 3.5, max. 4. but all in all, this album is a disgrace to the name of this band and to the entire death metal scene in general.
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23.04.2008 - 18:20
theflyingmachine

lol at the opposing Unspoken King reviews. Of the songs I've heard, I'd probably agree more with this review, although I haven't heard enough of it to give a solid rating (or perhaps I've heard too much).
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23.04.2008 - 22:47
Herzebeth

Love Ya!
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24.04.2008 - 08:08
Rating: 9
Metal George

Deathcore is getting big in North America and at first I was surprised at this style emerging. But there are so many bands doing Deathcore it seems that Cryptopsy are going all long for the ride. I think thier first 3 albums were thier best even though Whisper Supremacy had a 2nd rate Harcore vocalist. All the other ones were okay. I think people are better off getting Blashphemy made Flesh, None so Vile, & Whisper Supremacy. Maybe even None So LIve, which I do not have. Unless you really like death core then get the new Despised Icon, Ills of Modern Man. I also recommend any Dying Fetus albums.
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25.04.2008 - 16:55
Doc G.
Full Grown Hoser
From what Ive heard from the album, this review seems far more accurate. I guess its a review for all us close-minded people.
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"I got a lot of really good ideas, problem is, most of them suck."
- George Carlin
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25.04.2008 - 18:24
Behemnilephegor
Account deleted
Wow, the review by jupitreas is sooo different it's amazing what different people hear when they listen to the same content. I'm confused... I guess I will have to listen for myself and see.
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05.05.2008 - 03:29
selken
Irreligious
The album sounds great IMO, but considering this band is from the exclusive brutal Death metal, most fans are kind of purists (and I don't have any problem with that) so they would strongly dislike this album.

I only have one critic, the keyboards were used almot 0% of the time...
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07.05.2008 - 04:07
Southern Wind
Account deleted
The songwriting in this album isn't that bad, but there's something sooooo wrong, out of place about those clean voices. The breakdowns work great, the death metal songs like Worship Your Demons are ABSOLUTELY great, but when that fag begins to sing everything goes wrong... On the other hand, I don't really understand when people that likes this album talks about it as being groundbreaking in extreme metal history... come on, those choruses had been tried thousands of times in the last decade, it's just that ptobably they never sounded as misplaced as in The Unspoken King.
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24.06.2008 - 09:03
Shadowcross
The Summoner
Written by Metal George on 24.04.2008 at 08:08

Deathcore is getting big in North America and at first I was surprised at this style emerging. But there are so many bands doing Deathcore it seems that Cryptopsy are going all long for the ride. I think thier first 3 albums were thier best even though Whisper Supremacy had a 2nd rate Harcore vocalist. All the other ones were okay. I think people are better off getting Blashphemy made Flesh, None so Vile, & Whisper Supremacy. Maybe even None So LIve, which I do not have. Unless you really like death core then get the new Despised Icon, Ills of Modern Man. I also recommend any Dying Fetus albums.


I think you are right... you can see the 'core' scene invading a lot of the standard metal genres, unfortunately I think I prefer them separated.
There's so many of these shit scene bands now in Australia that call themselves 'death metal'
I don't think Dying Fetus is really deathcore tho.. it just has breakdowns. Devourment is another band kind of in that vein..

I've only heard one track from this album on the *cough* radio. It just screamed scene sellout to me. Never was that much into cryptopsy but id like to hear more and i'm sure i will when some dumbass tries telling me its the best thing ev0r
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25.08.2008 - 07:32
Rating: 6
HeavenDuff

"This sub-par attempt at a majorly different area of metal will leave Cryptopsy in no-man's-land having only angered previous fans and gained no new fans."

Your making me sad right there...
because I like both The Unspoken King and None So Vile.
They are really two different kind of metal albums, but still, each of theses albums have something unique and interresting.
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Nothing less than a Metal God
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11.03.2009 - 00:25
Menzaine
Account deleted
Not being a prick but

OLD CRYPTOPSY>New Cryptopsy

The two arent even on the same radar!
None so Vile is just a classic!
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23.12.2009 - 03:36
harshskater

I'm as disappointing as anyone here but i have different ideas on the album, i read a few interviews and seams like flo has always wanted to change the band's genre for w/e reason.

anyways i think i'm the only one who thinks the album should be rated as a metalcore album, these arnt band ratings but album ratings, theyve changed genres and deserve the reality of being considered a metalcore band

most of you are posting your ratings as if theyre still death metal when the album clearly wasnt an attempt at anything theyve done in the past.

cryptopsy is no longer a death metal band


and i think they should consider changing their name even, flo's the only original member left and musical style has changed entirely theyre a new band with the same name cryptopsy
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28.06.2010 - 16:21
Rating: 6
MétalNoir
Fils du Lys
Written by harshskater on 23.12.2009 at 03:36

I'm as disappointing as anyone here but i have different ideas on the album, i read a few interviews and seams like flo has always wanted to change the band's genre for w/e reason.

anyways i think i'm the only one who thinks the album should be rated as a metalcore album, these arnt band ratings but album ratings, theyve changed genres and deserve the reality of being considered a metalcore band

most of you are posting your ratings as if theyre still death metal when the album clearly wasnt an attempt at anything theyve done in the past.

cryptopsy is no longer a death metal band


and i think they should consider changing their name even, flo's the only original member left and musical style has changed entirely theyre a new band with the same name cryptopsy

I agree with you, I don't like this album, but it should effectively be reviewd as a deathcore album, not a sellout death album (even though deathcore IS sellout death, but anyway...). I haven't listened a lot the The Unspoken kKng because it sounds so bad to me, I haven't even made it to the infamous clean vocals and breakdowns, because the growls are fucking annoying... But that's because I can't stand core, not because Cryptopsy sucks.
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Notre destinée n'est pas encore tracée....
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06.11.2010 - 19:12
harshskater

Imo deathcore/metalcore shouldnt be compared much with death metal, cryptopsy changes styles, their fanbase changes, i dont like them anymore, doesnt mean the album sucks for what it's supqosed to be. People let their oppinions on certain genres get in the way of the ratings, i tell you what, cryptopsy now my favorite metalcore band or whatever you wanna call it, let them be the first that didnt always suck like all these new generation bands, maybe this will be something good for the metalcore/deathcore genre in the future. for all this i didnt rate the album at all, i have no reason to because i dont like metalcore or deathcore
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29.01.2011 - 19:06
Vivi'

I listened to it and then deleted it and never wanted to listen to it again. I was so shocked - one of my favourite bands, so brutal once...
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