More than 30 years into their storied career, Montreal death metal innovators CRYPTOPSY return with their ninth studio album, “An Insatiable Violence”, set for release on June 20, 2025 via Season Of Mist.
Revered in extreme metal circles for such groundbreaking classics as 1994’s “Blasphemy Made Flesh” and the 1996 magnum opus “None So Vile”, CRYPTOPSY find yet another gear on “An Insatiable Violence”, which further solidifies the band’s place in the upper echelon of death metal. Coming out of the pandemic, the band dedicated themselves to staying on top of their game more than ever before, with the intention of consistently putting out a new record every two years. That started with 2023’s acclaimed “As Gomorrah Burns” and continues 21 months later with “An Insatiable Violence”.
“We had to write the majority of ‘An Insatiable Violence’ while on the DEATH TO ALL tour, which was something we’d never done before,” vocalist Matt McGachy says. “Flo [Mounier, drums] and Chris [Donaldson, guitar] really put their hats on. It was a feat.”
“Ever since COVID, our focus is clearer, a lot of work gets done faster, and we push each other to get it done,” Mounier says.
In addition to featuring some of the fastest passages CRYPTOPSY has ever recorded — keen listeners will even hear the odd gravity blast from Mounier, a rarity from the virtuoso drummer — the controlled chaos of their signature sound is offset by well-timed passages that ease off the gas pedal enough to allow listeners to come up for some air. That dynamic rage on “An Insatiable Violence” in turn makes the more aggressive moments hit even harder, which is immediately noticeable on the harrowing “Until There’s Nothing Left” and the chugging closing track “Malicious Needs”. Olivier Pinard anchors “Fools Last Acclaim” with stunning authority (keeping pace with Mounier is an unenviable task) while Donaldson offsets gnarly, atonal riffs with melodic passages throughout the record. “It’s a continuation of ‘As Gomorrah Burns’,” McGachy says, “We really wanted to make a groovy record, and we think we’ve done it.”
It seems as though nothing is scarier than real life right now, and “An Insatiable Violence” is a commentary on today’s society as though filtered through the transgressive, countercultural perspectives of J.G. Ballard and David Cronenberg.
“It all came to me in a dream in August 2023,” elaborates McGachy. “I woke up, I took my phone, and I wrote down the title of the record. It’s about a person that wakes up every day and fixes a machine. Tinkers with it, tries to make it better all day long, sweating in the sun, and then at night, they strap themself into this machine and the machine tortures them, and they love it. Then they wake up the next day and fix it again to make it more efficient, to keep harnessing it, and then just keep doing it over and over again.
While fantastically twisted, “An Insatiable Violence” mirrors our toxic relationship with social media. “We’re continuously trying to feed this algorithm of the machine while it’s totally tearing us apart socially and psychologically”, McGachy continues. “‘The Nimis Adoration’ is about mukbang, these Korean people that eat too much food on the Internet. Piles and piles of food. A poor girl died on a live cam.”
At the center of the album is the mind-boggling percussion skill of Mounier, arguably the most imposing Canadian drummer not named Peart, who dominates such standout tracks as “Dead Eyes Replete”, “Fools Last Acclaim” and “Embrace The Nihility”.
“I look at Flo as an Olympic athlete,” says McGachy. “I want to push this guy to go a lot faster than CRYPTOPSY‘s previous releases. We have so much more to give, and I wanted just drain it all out of him while he’s still at the top of his game, because he is. He’s crushing.”
“I mix up a lot of a physical activity, like resistance training into the drumming,” Mounier says. “I recently developed new techniques that make it easier to go even faster, so I tried to push that on this album. My focus is now more on dynamics and the touch of the snare, a certain snap of the snare, a rim shot on the snare, the toms, a light touch or a hard touch. Live, I can really let go, you know, give the sound guy a hard time,” he adds with a laugh.
For McGachy, who has always boasted a powerful, guttural death growl, the rigors of touring have enabled him to evolve as a vocalist, and he turns in a revelatory performance on “An Insatiable Violence”. In addition to ear-scraping screams that rival George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher, McGachy unleashes the deepest, filthiest death growls of his career.
“‘Gomorrah’ was the first album that I recorded with my full false chord scream, which is something that I’d only just touched on ‘The Book Of Suffering: Tome II’ in little sections,” he says. “We did at least 140 shows since ‘Gomorrah’. I exclusively did my false chords during all the songs that we performed on ‘None So Vile’ and ‘Blasphemy Made Flesh’. And then, when we did go into the studio for ‘An Insatiable Violence’, Chris would be, like, ‘Deeper, you must go deeper!'”
Another fearsome vocalist from CRYPTOPSY‘s lore pops back into the booth on “An Insatiable Violence”. “When we were recording the vocals for ‘Embrace The Nihility’, Chris had the idea of ending the song with the same vocal pattern as the end of ‘…And Then It Passes’,” McGachy remembers. “We figured if we were going to rip ourselves off, then we may as well get the real thing. We were honored that Mike DiSalvo accepted. We are all huge fans of CRYPTOPSY‘s DiSalvo era. His vocals on this album are an ultra Easter egg for our fans.”
In addition to the effusive praise “As Gomorrah Burns” received from within the metal scene, the 2023 album achieved a first for CRYPTOPSY: earning them their first-ever Juno Award in 2024 for “Metal/Hard Music Album Of The Year”.
“We had little to no expectations of winning” says McGachy. “We didn’t even go to the ceremonies because we were on tour in Europe with ATHEIST. On the day we found out that we won, we had a crazy 18-hour drive from Derby to Germany, plus a ferry ride. But we still partied for 48 hours. Flo bought an expensive bottle of champagne”.
CRYPTOPSY recognize that not every death metal band sticks around long enough to win the equivalent of a Canadian Grammy Award 30 years into their career.
The cover art for “An Insatiable Violence” was created by the late, great vocalist Martin Lacroix.
“The album artwork has got to be one of the most important things to us,” the band says. “Martin Lacroix was one of our vocalists, one of our great friends and one of the nicest people that anyone could have the privilege to meet. We really wish he was here with us to share this moment. His perfect smile would say it all! Rest in peace, brother.”
CRYPTOPSY 2025 is:
Christian Donaldson: Guitars
Flo Mounier: Drums, Backing Vocals
Matt McGachy: Vocals
Oli Pinard: Bass
Photo by Maciej Pieloch
Source: blabbermouth.net
