Cryptworm’s third LP, Infectious Pathological Waste, quite charmingly arrives at the perfect time for yours truly; the deeper, choppier musical waters I’ve been swimming in the past few weeks have made for an often rewarding but exhaustingly challenging adventure. Conversely, this Infectious Pathologic Waste, though hardly stupid, is that specifically filthy brand of brutal and disturbed OSDM that is just a smidge catchier than it probably has any right to be. Suffice to say, it has left me feeling “Maimed and Gutted” in the best way.
Admittedly, Infectious Pathological Waste may be third Cryptworm LP but it’s the second Cryptworm LP I’ve heard. A brief journey on the wayback machine to the year 2022 would likely reveal me reclining ever so slightly in my rocking chair—earbuds on, iced coffee in hand, a tired but genuine smile on my face, listening to Cryptworm’s debut, Spewing Mephitic Putridity at approximately 7:15 am, another episode of Daniel Tiger blaring in the background. I can picture that brown and yellow cover vividly enough. What a fun little sojourn that record was. Yet I don’t recall ever having heard the follow-up, Oozing Radioactive Vomition. Not sure why, aside from sheer ignorance, because this new one may just end up my favorite OSDM of the year.
It’s a weird, almost embarrassingly contradictory exercise, what I am doing now, in attempting to carefully describe a record titled Infectious Pathological Waste. But it deserves that careful description. What we have here is a grimy death metal record that exists in a world free from apology, free from irony, free from revivalism, and in some sense free from the trappings of criticism and consumption. If you should understand anything about this record, it’s that there’s a free-spirited, jackassery level of fun happening here. Imbecilic fun. Nay, inherently critic-proof imbecilic fun. Almost.
Tibor Hanyi’s top class gurgling is all the announcement a listener needs to know Infectious Pathological Waste rules. But if you need to know what the album actually sounds like, a wiser colleague once described Cryptworm’s sound as Demilich but played like Autopsy. And that seemed entirely accurate and fair to me; that specific and pulverizing mix of distortion and technicality, double dipped in filth, grime, and pus. That Cryptworm executes it so flawlessly is what makes it so impressive. In its raw form, it’s delightful enough; as performed by Cryptworm, it’s art.
Highlighting or even discussing specific songs is kind of pointless when an entire album delivers like this one does. If pushed, the impossibly catchy title track, the also impossibly catchy and frenetic “Drowning in Purulent Excrementia,” and the punishing and extra gurgly “Embedded with Parasitic Larvae” are among the standouts. Those infrequent but not totally uncommon moments of doomier respite are where the Autopsy creeps in. And it’s where Cryptworm play with that dynamic the most—the freneticism, the filth, and the fun—that they sound best.
Shockingly impressive, this one. I am probably not recommending it to family or anything. Certainly not my wife. But if you have any interest at all in death metal of any variety, you owe it yourself to give Cryptworm’s Infectious Pathological Waste a listen.
