The Unspoken King
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''The Unspoken King'' is the sixth studio album by Canadian
death metal Death metal is an extreme metal, 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 death growl, growling vocals; aggressive ...
band Cryptopsy. 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 German heavy metal record label with offices in Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom. In August 2015, Century Media was acquired by Sony Music for US$17 million. Background Century Media was founded by R ...
. 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 Breakdown (music)#Heavy metal and punk rock, breakdowns. While there are some precursors ...
sound, a huge departure from the
technical death metal Technical death metal (also known as tech death) is a musical subgenre of death metal with particular focus on instrumental skill and complex songwriting. Technical and progressive experimentation in death metal began in the late 1980s and early ...
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 ...
, 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 instru ...
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 (SYL) 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 ...
'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 consists 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 obsc ...
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 is a broadly defined fusion genre combining elements of extreme metal and hardcore punk, originating in the 1990s United States and becoming popular in the 2000s. Metalcore typically has aggressive verses and melodic choruses, combined ...
elements such as breakdowns, clean singing vocals and keyboard accompaniments, as well as less of an emphasis on the time signature changes and
polyrhythm Polyrhythm () is the simultaneous use of two or more rhythms that are not readily perceived as deriving from one another, or as simple manifestations of the same meter. The rhythmic layers may be the basis of an entire piece of music (cross-rh ...
ic elements which thus lead to ''The Unspoken King'' to be widely considered a
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 Breakdown (music)#Heavy metal and punk rock, breakdowns. While there are some precursors ...
album. The album is generally considered to be 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'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''," 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 technology ...
'' 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
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 technology ...
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, root-power, and field quantities, power or root-power quantity on a logarithmic scale. Two signals whos ...
'' 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 (letter), the fifth letter of the Semitic abjads * He (pronoun), a pronoun in Modern English * He (kana), one of the Japanese kana (へ in hiragana and ヘ in katakana) * Ge (Cyrillic), a Cyrillic letter cal ...
'Born Dead' icwith 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 short, repeated motif or figure in the melody or accompaniment of a musical composition. Riffs are most often found in rock music, punk, heavy metal music, Latin, funk, and jazz, although classical music is also sometimes based on ...
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'' 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 the ...
* Alex Auburn −
guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...
, vocals * Christian Donaldson – guitar * Maggie Durand − keyboards, samples * Eric Langlois −
bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Wood * Bass or basswood, the wood of the tilia americana tree Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in th ...
* Flo Mounier
drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...
;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