Once Was Not

After the release of "Whisper Supremacy" and "And Then You'll Beg", Flo Mounier and the rest of band went to their senses, so they decided to fire - dubious quality - Mike DiSalvo. Immediately after this decision, they decided to recruit Martin Lacroix for a short time, touring and releasing with him the live album "None So Live" in 2003, and in the same year to reconcile with Lord Worm. With him in the line-up, but officially without Jon Levasseur, "Once Was Not" was released in 2005; one of the (most) eccentric Cryptopsy albums that...didn't cause much hype. It's strange because the reasons to create a huge interest on it - as I will prove in a moment - quite a few. The fifth album by Cryptopsy pushes the limits of extremes even higher than "And..." (which may have seemed ultra-absurd) and introduces a lot of extraordinary, even verging on avant-garde solutions.

On "Once Was Not" there are, for example, surprisingly many irregular rhythms, guitar twists, ambiguous post-apo type atmosphere, strange sampled insertions (mainly due to introductions), interlacing of barking Worm's vocals with poetic declamations (sometimes even in French) or insane blasting. Well, at the drums side, it should be mentioned that on "Once..." Flo Mounier outdid himself by recording some of the best parts in his career - very intense, incredibly fast, precise and twisted. Fortunately, a lot of good can be said about the other musicians as well, which is most excited about the return of Lord Worm and his barking growls. Next, the compositions themselves are great, of course, including "The Pestilence That Walketh In Darkness (Psalm 91: 5-8)" (a song-deception with a calm introduction and brutal expansion), "In The Kingdom Where Everything Dies, The Sky Is Mortal", "Keeping The Cadaver Dogs Busy" (with an unusual jazz introduction), "Carrionshine", "The Frantic Pace Of Dying" or "Angelskingarden", in which there are best balance between the above-mentioned novelties and the brutality characteristic of Cryptopsy. The most questionable here is the ending, that is, the ambient-like "The End" and the song "Endless Cemetery", in which the same riff from "The Pestilence..." was pressed. So the conclusion is simple. At this point, a more brutal song without auto-quotes would definitely work better.

After all, "Once Was Not" is Cryptopsy excellent return to form, indeed!, an album that can be safely located just behind "Blasphemy Made Flesh" and "None So Vile". The Canadians showed on it that after two weaker discs they are able to take the extreme to the next, intriguing level and sensibly extend it with slightly more intricate patents, including the avant-garde. Oddly enough, "Once Was Not" also turned out to be a kind of farewell. Two years after its premiere, Lord Worm left Cryptopsy again, and Flo Mounier's band began to go through a very turbulent period.

Originally on A bit of subjectivism...in metal