Cryptopsy - Whisper Supremacy (1998)^{Release ID: 559}

Here's a hot take for ya. This is my Cryptopsy album of choice these days. I know that might sound strange given the almost unanimous love for the Canadian's first couple of records & the fact that brutal death metal is my subgenre of choice but I honestly never saw the attraction that others seem to & consider them both to be significantly overrated. I actually don't have any time for "Blasphemy Made Flesh" & even though I quite like "None So Vile" I've never thought of it as anything particularly special. For their third record though we saw Cryptopsy dropping a little bit of the brutality & adding a significant amount of technicality with a more professional production job & a new vocalist who actually attempts to enunciate his words even if his delivery is more serviceable than it is impressive. Extreme drumming legend Flo Mounier still blasts away at ridiculous speeds but he still doesn't have the endurance or precision to fully pull it all off & I maintain my position that there are much better death metal drummers out there. Despite the consistent blasting though, this is definitely more of a tech-death record than a brutal-death one. New front man Mike DiSalvo sounds quite a bit like Cannibal Corpse/Monstrosity legend George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher here. In fact, I'd suggest that the whole album comes across as a more brutal & technical version of the world's biggest selling death metal band. There's not a weak moment on "Whisper Supremacy" though with a very consistent tracklisting being one of the album's strengths. Unfortunately it lacks the highlights to be considered for my higher scores & it probably doesn't help that the individual tracks can tend to sound pretty samey as they lack a bit of identity. Still... I love this style of death metal & have always found Cryptopsy's third effort to be a really enjoyable experience.

For fans of Suffocation, Wormed & Cannibal Corpse.