Technical Death-Core Anyone? Nope?
The phrase 'Technical' in music is one to viewed with extreme caution. On one hand you'll be blown away by the sheer brilliance of the musicianship, the breaks, the solos and the tempo changes. It'll make you sit back and think, "My God, how on earth did they write this?" On the other hand you'll be bored to tears at the lack of any real direction with songs that endlessly chop and change for no discernable reason. They'll sound an utter mess and you'll sit back and think, "My God, why did they write this?" Add the words 'death' and 'metal' to the word 'technical' and you're in for all of the above with added shouting, growling and triple speed double bass drumming, which, is exactly what we have here.
'The Unspoken King' is the sixth studio release from these Canadian extremists. The other five have somehow passed me by, you can't profess to know every band can you? However, if this album is anything to go by I can't see myself breaking down any doors or jumping any fences to obtain their back catalogue. It's not the fact that Cryptopsy are a bad band, far from it. One spin of this disc will demonstrate what a tight and talented bunch of chaps and chapettes they are. But there's more to creating an album than being able to play. It's a little like a painter who has all the colours, all the brushes and all the talent, but just paints lots of doodles on a large piece of canvas. For all of the band's skills, the music is messy and incoherent causing your attention to drift even though they're trying very hard to keep it.
There's an old saying that can apply to this album. If you have twelve clowns all acting the fool, as clowns do, and you add a person quoting Shakespere then they'll just look like the thirteenth clown. In Cryptopsy's case they have a similar number of ideas per tune all of mediocre and standard death metal, however, one idea will be of merit but it just gets lost in the constant thrashing that you can hardly tell it's there. Take this idea out and you'll realise that the band are capable of writing some good breaks. 2:40 in on 'Silence The Tyrants' is a wonderful change as is 1:06 in 'Bound Dead,' to take two examples. But you could also say that the law of averages would predict that with so many ideas the band would at least pen some exciting breaks.
This album is fast, heavy and extremely brutal in places, all of the things you want form a death metal album. But it also comes with a few 'metal core' break downs where the music mellows out into straight chords and the clean vocals wallow themselves over the top. Sometimes it works, but at other times the music is so extreme that it sounds like two songs badly glued together. If the term 'death-core' makes you run for the hills then start packing now. If the term 'technical death-core' makes you sprint for the hills, you'd better put on your running shoes. I don't think 'The Unspoken King' will appeal to the death metal crowd but perhaps to the metal core fans wanting something with a little more balls to it. If that's you then, by all means check this out.