''The Unspoken King'' is the sixth studio album by Canadian

death metal Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. It typically employs heavily distorted and low-tuned guitars, played with techniques such as palm muting and tremolo picking; deep growling vocals; aggressive, powerful drumming, feat ...

band

Cryptopsy Cryptopsy is a Canadian technical death metal band from Montreal, formed in 1988. History Necrosis (1988–1992) Necrosis was formed in April 1988 by drummer Mike Atkin, guitarist Steve Thibault and vocalist Dan "Lord Worm" Greening, initially ...

. The album was released on May 26, 2008 in Europe, and June 24, 2008 in the US by

Century Media Records Century Media Records is a heavy metal record label with offices in the United States, Germany and London. In August 2015, Century Media was acquired by Sony Music for US$17 million. Background Century Media was founded by Robert Kampf and Oli ...

. It was the last album to feature guitarist Alex Auburn and bassist Eric Langlois. Keyboardist Maggie Durand was also removed from the band shortly after completion. ''The Unspoken King'' is controversial for its

deathcore Deathcore is an extreme metal subgenre that combines death metal with metalcore. The genre consists of death metal guitar riffs, blast beats, and metalcore breakdowns. While there are some precursors to the concept of death metal fused with met ...

sound, a huge departure from the

technical death metal Technical death metal (also referred to as tech-death) is a musical subgenre of death metal that began and developed in the early- to mid-1990s, with particular focus on challenging, demanding instrumental skill and complex songwriting. Techni ...

style the band had become known for over the previous decade. Because of this, the album garnered mostly negative reception from longtime fans. However, some critics praised the album.

Background

''The Unspoken King'' was originally to be called ''The Book of Suffering'', and was to be a

double album A double album (or double record) is an audio album that spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold, typically either records or compact disc. A double album is usually, though not always, released as such because the recording i ...

, but on April 23, 2007, Cryptopsy announced that lead vocalist Lord Worm had been fired from the band and they were looking for a new vocalist. Following this, Cryptopsy revealed the addition of vocalist Matt McGachy and

keyboardist A keyboardist or keyboard player is a musician who plays keyboard instruments. Until the early 1960s musicians who played keyboards were generally classified as either pianists or organists. Since the mid-1960s, a plethora of new musical instr ...

Maggie Durand to the band. With these additions, the band's style incorporated more melodic elements and breakdowns, thus leading to a drastic sound change in the band. During the album's recording sessions, a cover of

Strapping Young Lad Strapping Young Lad was a Canadian extreme metal band formed by Devin Townsend in Vancouver in 1994. The band started as a one-man studio project; Townsend played most of the instruments on the 1995 debut album, ''Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing' ...

's "Oh My Fucking God" was recorded. A music video for the track "Worship Your Demons" debuted on MTV

Headbangers Ball ''Headbangers Ball'' is a music television program that consisted of heavy metal music videos airing on MTV and its global affiliates. The show began on MTV on April 18, 1987, playing heavy metal music videos from both well-known and more obs ...

on June 14, 2008. The then-new vocalist McGachy stated that he had trouble sleeping during the recording sessions of the album; "I would stay up lying in bed, rethinking all of the parts I had tracked, and was wondering if I was actually good enough to be in this band ..But by the time we entered the mixing process, I saw the entire band singing along to my vocals, so I finally felt that I must have done something right."

Musical style

Although ''The Unspoken King'' still carries their usual death metal sound, the shift in their style has been defined by the incorporation of

metalcore Metalcore (also known as metallic hardcore) is a fusion music genre that combines elements of extreme metal and hardcore punk. As with other styles blending metal and hardcore, such as crust punk and grindcore, metalcore is noted for its use of ...

elements such as breakdowns, clean singing vocals and keyboard accompaniments, as well as less of an emphasis on the time signature changes and polyrhythmic elements which thus lead to ''The Unspoken King'' to be widely considered a

album. The album is generally considered Cryptopsy's most eccentric and experimental release to date. It is also the only Cryptopsy album to feature clean vocals.

Critical reception

Despite fan outcry against the band's change in sound, ''The Unspoken King'' ultimately received mixed reviews from critics with much of the positive remarks being awarded to

Flo Mounier Flo Mounier (born 29 June 1974 in Tours, France) is the drummer of metal band Cryptopsy. He has toured Canada, Europe, Japan, Australia and the United States as a headlining act over the last 24 years, and combined record sales have reached over ...

's drum performance. On one hand one critic remarked that the album "is an unsettling experience. It is literally like listening to a deathcore band trying and failing to replicate ''

Whisper Supremacy ''Whisper Supremacy'' is the third studio album by Canadian technical death metal band Cryptopsy. It is the first album to feature vocalist Mike DiSalvo and the only album to feature guitarist Miguel Roy. On the US release the band logo is in th ...

''," while ''

Metal Storm Metal Storm Limited was a research and development company based in Brisbane, Australia, that specialized in electronically initiated superposed load weapons technology and owned the proprietary rights to the electronic ballistics technolog ...

'' claimed that "the album shows flashes of the greatness that is mainly through Flo's rummingand the slight progressive touch that was also hinted on in the band's last album."Cryptopsy - The Unspoken King review

Canadian review site Grayowl Point was very critical of the album, accusing the band of abandoning technicality in favor for a more brutal sound. Reviewer Michael Rhombus went on to say "Believe it or not, the vast majority of metal fans couldn’t care less about brutality and are more concerned with musicianship. Matt McGeachy apparently thinks his audience are fourteen year olds jerking off looking for crunchy guitar noises and has for the most part ditched the abstract part of Cryptopsy." Reviewer Kevin Stewart-Panko of ''

Decibel The decibel (symbol: dB) is a relative unit of measurement equal to one tenth of a bel (B). It expresses the ratio of two values of a power or root-power quantity on a logarithmic scale. Two signals whose levels differ by one decibel have a po ...

'' gave some lukewarm praise in a 2011 retrospective article about the record, stating that the opening track "'Worship Your Demons' is about as good a Cryptopsy album opener as there ever has been. It’s surprisingly catchy without sacrificing any technicality ..However, when they conclude the typical Cryptopsy of

he song He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

'Born Dead' with more singing and an anthemic, almost modern-rock chord workout, it seems more tacked-on than natural or flowing." Chronicles of Chaos gave the album a positive review, praising the vocals and

guitar riff A riff is a repeated chord progression or refrain in music (also known as an ostinato figure in classical music); it is a pattern, or melody, often played by the rhythm section instruments or solo instrument, that forms the basis or accomp ...

performances while mildly shaming the six songs that contain clean vocal sections. They closed their review with "It may not sound like ''

Blasphemy Made Flesh ''Blasphemy Made Flesh'' is the debut album by Canadian death metal band Cryptopsy. The album was released in 1994, re-released in 1997 by Displeased Records, and also re-released in 2001 by Century Media with a different cover. It is the only al ...

'' but I'd happily wager that if it did there would be another legion of nay-saying pantywaists complaining about that too."

Track listing

Personnel

* Matt McGachy −

lead vocals The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of t ...

* Alex Auburn −

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

, vocals * Christian Donaldson – guitar * Maggie Durand −

keyboards Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

, samples * Eric Langlois − bass *

−

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

;Additional Personnel * Gabriel McCaughry – vocals ("Anoint the Dead") * Youri Raymond – vocals ("Leach") * Christian Donaldson – production, mixing * Jeff Fortin – re-amping * Bernard Belley – mastering

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Unspoken King, The 2008 albums Cryptopsy albums Century Media Records albums