Whisper Supremacy

Heavy-bassy guitars launching a full-scale technical jazzlike death metal assault. Cryptopsy is back with its trademark brutal technical riffing mixed with its head-banging chugging, but this time around there’s no Lord Worm. Is this a bad thing? Well, it depends…

First off, lets say Flo Mournier is still a fucking monster. He still will rape most drum contemporaries and is still the solid backbone of Cryptopsy. His drumming hasn’t changed much from the last album and that’s not a bad thing. There is a change in the second guitarist though, where Miguel Roy joins Jon Levasseur for this brutal album. The guitars are fast and technical, blending jazz-like rhythms, frequent tempo changes with chugging headbanging riffs that’ll send you on a quest to destroy your boss’s car. The bassist, Eric Langlois is still here, but unfortunately this time around his basslines are mostly covered up by the guitars and drums, unless you make an effort to try to listen to the bass, you won’t notice them.

Now, as in any band, changing vocalists will always initiate some controversy, and that happens to be the case here. Lord Worm had a deep gutteral vocal style, typically favored by many death metal fans, but new vocalist Mike DiSalvo has a more hardcore sounding vocal. Nonetheless still deep sounding, it’s quite a bit different from Lord Worm’s. Worm was deep to the point where it was almost unintelligible and DiSalvo is kinda deep but you could make out what he’s saying. All its gonna be in the end is that its just a matter of taste. I personally don’t really give a shit, as long as its not clean I’m cool with the vocals, although I do prefer Lord Worm’s vocals better.

So, aside from the vocals Cryptopsy’s back with another brutal album just like the last one right? Well, not exactly. Aside from the vocals, there are a few minor setbacks for the album. Most of it just sounds mediocre. “None so Vile” was filled with more energy, relentless power and anger. This album just feels a little bit more suppressed and whiny. If “None so Vile” was a cheeseburger, “Whisper Supremacy” would be the sesame seed on the buns. It’s like “Yeah, its definitely a Cryptopsy release, but I could live without it.” It’s a solid watered down Cryptopsy release.

I often find myself dozing away, day dreaming when I listen to this cd. I just loose my concentration on the music because, even though its brutal, fast and really good, it doesn’t have that aggression and creativity they had on “none so vile”. I always get pulled back though, because every one of their songs has at least one kick-ass chugging moment.

If “None so Vile” wasn’t released then probably this album would’ve gotten a higher score but, in the end this album is just a good solid Cryptopsy release. Let it grow on you, but it’ll never be as good as “none so vile”. The only two really memorable songs that really stand out from the rest are “Cold Blood, Warm Hate” and “Serpent’s Coil”. Those two are literally like ear-worms, you just can’t get them off your head

But this album will still destroy any other brutal death metal contemporaries, I just expected a little bit more out of Cryptopsy.

RECOMMENDED SONG: Cold Blood Warm Hate, Serpent’s Coil
LYRICS: Horror
PRODUCTION: Heavy-bassy excellent production
PACKAGING: A dragon rising in a cloudy sky
OVERALL: Excellent release but Cryptopsy could’ve done better