When I die, despite the fact that I love them so, I don’t want any Cryptopsy played at my funeral. Why?

Because even when dead, I wouldn’t be able to resist the call of Cryptopsy’s maniac unpredictable bass patterns and crazy guitar arpeggios. I would have no choice but to leap out of my coffin in that half-jacket they give you, and start to thrash around and headbang, mostly naked, old, but revitalized by the mad and gleefully twisted energy of Cryptopsy. Children all around would scream, hide their burning eyes, and be corrupted for life, but I would be unable to care, unable to do anything but headbang my old and wrinkled neck, and flash the horns until my rotting fingers fell off.

But if they were to play Blasphemy Made Flesh as opposed to None So Vile or Whisper Supremacy, or even And Then You’ll Beg… I think I could resist the call for a little while longer. Maybe at least thirty seconds longer.

Blasphemy Made Flesh was the debut of the band that rose to fame chiefly due to its vocalist, the incomparable Lord Worm, but it’s not quite there yet. There are moments when their genius shines through (particularly on opener Defenestration, Mutant Christ, and Pathological Frolic), but for the most part, this is only a halfway wondrous release.

First mistake was the production. I’m sorry, but it’s horrible. The bass is mixed way on the down low (not literally), the drums are underproduced, and it kind of sounds like the band, all in all, is playing a few blocks away from you. The guitars are so far in the back that you can barely make sense of the riffs without turning the volume so far up that it literally gave me what felt like a migraine headache after a while, and Lord Worm is mixed far too close up.

Another problem is Lord Worm. Here, he sounds entirely inhuman- in both his growls and his completely nonsensical vocal patterns (it is nigh-impossible to actually follow around with what he’s saying, even WITH lyrics in front of you, for most of the songs), but that isn’t quite a good thing. He simply cannot keep up with the pace of the music. It’s like you’ve just snorted two lines of coke, and are jacked up with energy, but your friend is just talking to you in a normal tone of voice, normal pace. You want to grab him by the ear and scream “Keep up or get lost!”

Anyway, Defenestration starts out with a simple guitar line intro, and then what sounds like a bunch of fluffy pillows getting pounded with sledgehammers (or a bunch of machine guns shooting pillows, whichever imagery works better for you) turns up, and then you realize that this isn’t industrial, so those must be guitars.

Luckily, you’ll be able to hear them better in a moment, after Flo Mounier introduces your ears to the hyperblast (headbang, jerk. NOW) and Lord Worm chimes in with his pronouncements on the subject of defenestration (throwing somebody out of a window), along to some healthy groove that seems to have popped out of nowhere, accompanied by slap bass. Get used to atonal music and funky slap bass if you want to listen to Cryptopsy: there are plenty of both. Anyway, the track powers on, striking an excellent balance between grooviness and runaway-train speed, for nearly five minutes. Could someone please tell me what that noise at the end is? Because I really have no idea. It sounds somewhat like a mix of rattlesnake getting electrocuted and a man breaking all the bones in his body at once.

On to other highlights: Abigor, for one, has a killer midsection with some really odd high screechy riff played over the usual chaotic wall of guitars, the lyrics to Pathological Frolic absolutely rule, as does the song itself, a discordant and disdainfully nutty romp through shattered-glass hell. Mutant Christ is insanely raw and dirty feeling, with Worm’s growls reaching a new low (in terms of deepness, not in terms of quality). Open Face Surgery starts out with a sound sample that perfectly matches the song, and goes on into a weird-but-cool choppy groove before reaching equilibrium around 3:09 with a beautiful distant alien solo from Jon Levasseur (I miss that fellow…) that Trey Azagthoth would have been proud of, along with a twenty-three second scream (not a typo) from all three vocalists, starting with Flo and ending with Worm.

All in all, I recommend you start your Cryptopsy career with None So Vile or And Then You’ll Beg (arguably their most accessible and least rational), segue into Whisper Supremacy, and then pick this up if you want more. This album is very good, but the hardest of all of theirs to appreciate, and definitely the worst-produced.