Review: Cryptopsy

Cryptopsy
““And Then You’ll Beg””
(Century Media)

Be forewarned, the latest from Cryptopsy, And Then You’ll Beg, is a non-stop blitzkrieg assault on your senses.  The opening track sets the tone with an excerpt from The Matrix, “You hear that?…That is the sound of inevitability.”  We are launched in to an assault of spit-fire drumming and caustic guitars, one quickly learns why Cryptopsy is on the forefront of extreme metal.  Returning fans will find that that vocals are taken down a notch, making them slightly weaker, but you probably won’t even care.  The total sum of the parts makes this a quality album to be played at high volumes.   The disappointment of And Then You’ll Beg is its length, being only 9 tracks, and three pass the 5 minute mark, but that isn’’t much to complain about.  In my humble opinion they could use a little more variance to the music, avoiding the similarities that begin to cover the songs.  But fans of brutal grinding death will probably be all the more pleased by this.  This is Cryptopsy’’s fourth album, and continues their tradition of blinding speed, technicality, heaviness, and power.  Music like this is hard to pin down because it is so much in a category of it’s own.  But the train theme to the album (on the cover is a man chained to railroad tracks, the band photo is in a train car, and the Matrix excerpt is from the scene with the subway) matches the sound rather well, they are a sonic train out of control.