Review Summary: Combine mundane technical death metal instrumentation with a lifeless vocal performance, horrid production, and a couple signature Cryptopsy moments, and you have And Then You'll Beg.
None So Vile is widely considered one of
the death metal albums of the 90’s. It essentially has everything that makes death metal great in the first place – stellar riffs and drumming, audible and independent bass, and not to mention some of the best breakdowns in the genre (none of that chugga chugga bullshit). On
Whisper Supremacy Lord Worm was replaced by Mike DiSalvo on vocals which caused a bit of discrepancy within the fan base, but to be fair Mike did a pretty solid job being a non-growler featured on a technical death metal album. However on
And Then You’ll Beg, his presence is undoubtedly the bane of the record. He gives an absolutely wretched vocal performance on top of the mundane instrumentation that was unlike anything Cryptopsy had done before, adding up to nothing more than another run-of-the-mill death metal album from a band that could do so much better.
And Then You’ll Beg continues Cryptopsy’s more technical approach, although unlike
Whisper Supremacy which had a perfect combination of fresh riffs with a melodic touch and some of the dirtiest riffs Cryptopsy has ever done,
And Then You’ll Beg meanders around a familiar comfort zone of standard, uninteresting songwriting for most of its 39 minute runtime. In retrospect, after listening to this as many times as I have, I can barely remember a handful of riffs, contrary to previous Cryptopsy efforts where seemingly every song had at least one (usually multiple) highlight moment to set it apart from the others. As a whole,
And Then You’ll Beg sounds like a loud blur of stale, boring death metal with very few glimmers of pleasantness overshadowed by its overbearing monotonousness.
As I stated earlier, Mike DiSalvo’s presence is the greatest bane of
And Then You’ll Beg. His tough guy hardcore vocals were passable, even somewhat enjoyable on
Whisper Supremacy, but here he sounds like he’s trying way too hard to sound brutal and it’s just dreadful. The vocals aren’t the only negative, as it’s easily the worst produced Cryptopsy album. It’s odd because
None So Vile and
Whisper Supremacy had such a wonderfully dark and murky atmosphere, whereas this is a very hollow, flat sounding album. The guitars have hardly any crunch to them and the vocals cover them up most of the time anyway. Because of this, everything on
And Then You’ll Beg sounds haphazardly thrown together without the glue of good production holding it in place.
This is a Cryptopsy album, though, so it’s not all bad. ‘We Bleed’ is definitely the track pick here, having some of the best riffs on the album along with a killer solo from Jon Levasseur. ‘Shroud’ also has its moments with a tasteful classical sounding riff about half way through coalescing the more dissonant halves of the song together nicely. Unfortunately that’s about where the positives end. Apart from an interesting bass lead into ‘Soar and Envision Sore Vision’ and the nut-crunching intro of ‘Voice of Unreason,’ nothing really stands out on this record. It’s really a shame considering what Cryptopsy were capable of, only to blend right into the rest of the death metal crowd with this generic outing.
And Then You’ll Beg is a worthwhile listen for a die hard Cryptopsy fan, but I’d go so far as to say it’s the worst album in their discography (yes, including
The Unspoken King). Not bad, just painfully and utterly average.
Recommended Tracks:
➢ We Bleed
➢ Shroud
➢ Back to the Worms
