Diamonds & Rust: Cryptopsy’s Blasphemy Made Flesh Celebrates 30 Years Of Getting Thrown Out Of Windows

[Cover art by Dragon Design (RIP)]

Developed From Memories of Blood

By 1994, death metal was a firmly established genre with expected parameters in place for what did and did not qualify. In fact, one could easily argue that 1991 was the crowning year of it coming into its true form. A slew of unimpeachable classics were released to define death metal that year, including:

Death – Human
Suffocation – Effigy Of The Forgotten
Carcass – Necroticism – Descanting The Insalubrious
Dismember – Like An Everflowing Stream
Immolation – Dawn Of Possession
Gorguts – Considered Dead
Entombed – Clandestine
Autopsy – Mental Funeral
Cannibal Corpse – Butchered At Birth
Asphyx – The Rack
Atheist – Unquestionable Presence
Bolt Thrower – War Master
Ripping Corpse – Dreaming With The Dead

There are many more that could be added to that list. If you were to make a list of the top 100 death metal albums of all time, probably at least a quarter of it would be albums released in 1991. Beyond becoming a musical powerhouse, death metal would also become a known entity in a new way shortly after as Morbid Angel signed to Warner Bros. collaborator Giant Records in 1992 and would even have their song “God of Emptiness” appear on an episode of Beavis and Butthead. What that means is by the time Cryptopsy would go to the studio in April of 1994 to record their first full-length album, finding a way to cover new ground would’ve already been proving a bit challenging. Cannibal Corpse had the slasher movie in music form covered; Suffocation was spawning a new breed of brutal death metal; Deicide was brandishing hellfire by channeling Satan; Bolt Thrower cornered the war form of death metal; Gorguts had pinned down dissonance and technicality while Athiest was jumping on the Ferris wheel of weirdness.

Eventually, the Quebecois quintet would say, “Hold my poutine, we’re gonna make this completely feral,” but it took them a few years to get there. Like many death metal bands at the time, Cryptopsy initially began as a thrash band in the late 80s. After a few demos, the moniker of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder would be dropped when drummer Flo Mounier joined the band. A few more team changes later and the newly minted Cryptopsy would unleash their only demo, Ungentle Exhumation, in 1993. All but one of those songs would be repurposed the next year for Blasphemy Made Flesh. While the sophomore album that followed has largely left this violent debut in the shadows, let’s shine a little bit of light on what started it all for five musically raving lunatics from the great white north.

Getting Gravaged For 40 Minutes

Blasphemy Made Flesh spends precisely zero seconds of time fucking about before it reveals its modus operandi of battering you to death with one million notes per song. A wonky isolated guitar bounces in before Mounier’s insane drums launch into near-gravity blasts, while the bass notes show an early knack for dominating with funky plonks. A well-placed “BLECH” and a couple of shrieks later from vocalist Lord Worm and “Defenestration” is truly off to the races. There are slicing riffs, perfectly-timed bass pops and beatdown-esque passages that give this maelstrom of music glimmers of hooks and fleeting moments for the listener to grasp.

“Abigor” is the first song to utilize a Jon Levasseur guitar lead, but in an odd way. The shift in guitar tone is more crisp and clean as it cuts through but the early parts are repeated and end up being a fake out as it never develops into a true lead…the first time. When the same guitar line returns, Levasseur builds on it repeatedly before dropping a bit of shred toward the end. His leads are often not particularly well-developed and have a knack for inserting a bit of clarity and calm into the chaos of the rest of the songs, even when he does opt to go full-shred with it. They more often bleed in a bit of drama but not in the wailing madness form you might expect.

“Close your eyes, this may hurt a lot,” says the sample kicking off “Open Face Surgery,” one of Cryptopsy’s most popular songs to this day. The song immediately bashes your ears with a thundering rhythm and some brutal chugging that leads to a form of vocals that can only be described as the death metal equivalent of dry heaving. At one point, there’s a slick little groove to the riff and another where the bass seems like it’s running the last mile of a marathon and starting to fall apart as it tries to keep up with the purely ludicrous drums. There’s a slower lead and comparatively quiet part before Lord Worm exhales a piercing shriek that lasts for nearly 30 seconds at the song’s end. Each second that passes has you thinking, “Well, he couldn’t possibly keep going…right?” But he does, and it’s absolutely bonkers.

The remainder of the album implements a mix of all the same in equally brain-busting ways with their own unique moments. The opening church organs, bass flutters that match kick-roll patterns, and a simple segment that proffers just a taste of melody like early At The Gates help “Serial Messiah” sprint along. “Born Headless” has a more traditionally shreddy lead and gives much of the song’s technical merits a sense of hardcore’s beatdown mentality. “Gravaged (A Cryptopsy)” might be Mounier’s best performance on the album. He flails between wild fills, complicated cymbal runs, staccato snare abuse, and so much more at the drop of a dime. “Mutant Christ” lets things slow down just a hair to give parts of the song an ominous trudge.

The warm natural sound is part of what makes this and None So Vile really stand out. Modern death metal at this level of technicality is often very clinical and cold, including even the last few Cryptopsy releases. Since this was recorded before everything could be triggered to hell and over-processed, the band had to actually play their instruments as violently as they sound. There’s a live energy to this release even if the overall recording is a bit quiet. It also has a couple of charming blips along the way, such as a quick stop on “Born Headless,” which sounds like it simply cut out rather than being an intentional break in the song.

The Pathological Frolickings Of Our Good Lord Worm

As much as Cryptopsy’s success and identity are inextricably linked to Mounier, it was Lord Worm’s vocals and bizarre lyrics that really helped them to stand out among their peers at the time of Blasphemy Made Flesh‘s release. Not content to simply follow the Cookie Monster mold of the time, Lord Worm shrieks like a banshee, gets glottal like a Predator, does inhaled wind-tunnel howls, burps up deep guttural hideousness, strings together a bunch of vocals in a row to sound like he’s being electrocuted, and I swear, at one point he even does some sort of demented oink. The man is truly unhinged behind the mic.

While his lyrical subject matter wasn’t necessarily particularly unique for death metal at the time, his tongue-in-cheek approach to writing them certainly gave Cryptopsy a bit more character. He has gone on record saying that he always wanted to impart a bleak form of humor. Citing Clive Barker as an inspiration, you can just imagine the big grin on Lord Worm’s face as he fused horror, sex and over-the-top nonsense together:

“I’ve learned to control my thoughts
ever since I recognized the first eavesdropper:
those who listen in on my thoughts,
my logic, my sanity
I cannot let them know I don’t know
the verses, or converse in my head:
lash out at future foes,
banter with friends I’ve not yet met” – “Open Face Surgery”

“I just want to hold your pretty hand
The rest of you can be dissolved in acid” – “Serial Messiah”

“O most luscious cenobite,
you wield your whip
as though it were another appendage;
Favor me with pleasure-pain,
rip me with your claws
Chew me with your saw-toothed cunt” – “Abigor”
(that Barker influence isn’t so subtle)

“How old was Geoffrey?
At a guess, I’d say
about twelve or thirteen;
He died accidentally
from auto-erotic asphyxiation;
He’d been masturbating…
our little stiff still has one on
and it’s been one week!” – “Pathological Frolic”

For god’s sake, the album opens with a song about tricking a baby into falling out of a window by putting its stuffed rabbit on the ledge. His job as an English teacher outside of the band clearly adds a little panache to the sickness, but the sweet irony of it is that even with the lyrics in front of you, it’s impossible to tell what the hell he’s saying during the vast majority of any song. Lord Worm prefers function over form when it comes to his rabid vocals, being perfectly content to skip words and blur them together in one sound if he feels it better suits the song. Like I said above, he’s unhinged.

A Legacy of Defenestration

Cryptopsy never seemed quite able to maintain the peak they would reach with None So Vile, and most likely, that’s due to the fact that they’ve had a steady rotation of throwing members out of the band van window. Blasphemy Made Flesh and None So Vile feel like two of a pair because three-fifths of the band remained intact, most importantly Mounier and Lord Worm, whose work gave those albums a stamped identity. To this day, the band has never maintained a consistent lineup between full-length albums. Mounier has been the only steady member from the debut to last year’s As Gomorrah Burns. Lord Worm would depart after the band’s sophomore album, return for one more album in 2005, and disappear shortly after. Mike DiSalvo took on vocal duties for the two albums in between, with a markedly different vocal style. Similarly, Matt McGachy became the young-gun vocalist in 2008 but has had an uphill battle to gain fans back onto his side after having the unfortunate fate of his debut being the band’s nadir in the form of The Unspoken King. McGachy has incredible speed, but his approach is much more focused and deliberate than the wily nature of Lord Worm.

The band’s style and approach to writing have similarly morphed over time, leaving fans with various opinions on which era they prefer. I remain a steadfast fan and even consider The Book Of Suffering EPs and the self-titled album from 2012 to be pretty close to on par with the DiSalvo albums. That said, nothing compares to the one-two punch of Cryptopsy’s first two records. I’m sure you’re well-acquainted with None So Vile, but if you haven’t spun or recently revisited Blasphemy Made Flesh, I strongly encourage you to put it next on your playlist. To ignore this maelstrom of madness is to be deserving of having been born headless.