WEB EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: CRYPTOPSY DRUMMER FLO MOUNIER AND NEW VOCALIST MATT McGACHY ON THEIR LATEST ALBUM, ‘THE UNSPOKEN KING’

Just two days after their controversial new album The Unspoken King hit stores, Canadian death-metal legends Cryptopsy rolled into New York City with the Summer Slaughter Tour on the tail end of a fan and critic backlash. It wasn’t the new album’s release that had bloggers and critics up in arms about the band’s alleged “new sound”; it was the March leaking of the track “Bemoan the Martyr,” which featured the Montreal metallers’ signature screaming vocals but also introduced some singing, that had fans crying, “Metalcore!” When the band took the stage Thursday night, they proved that the direction they took with the new album made for a purely brutal live performance.

The Unspoken King is Cryptopsy’s eighth studio effort and marks the debut of new vocalist Matt McGachy of 3 Mile Scream, who replaced the departing Dan “Lord Worm” Greening, while introducing a dynamic new sound with cleaner vocals, a few melodic guitar parts, and a touch of keyboard. Despite the backlash among fans, in fact only a small proportion of the new album includes the much-criticized sung vocals; the majority of the album presents the same screaming and grinding technical death metal the band has so faithfully offered its fans. Revolver caught up with McGachy and drummer Flo Mounier before the show to discuss the new album and the band’s lineup changes.

REVOLVER What inspired you to take a new, dynamic direction with The Unspoken King?
FLO MOUNIER We’ve always been inspired by different singers in general and have always wanted to experiment with different vocal ranges and styles and stuff like that and haven’t had a chance on previous albums. When we and Lord Worm kind of parted ways, we went around trying to find a singer who had that range and who would be able to experiment with different vocals and different kinds of moves and stuff. So, that’s basically why we did this. But it’s been in the works for a long time.


Would you call this album typical of Cryptopsy?
MOUNIER It’s something new, for sure. But for us, it’s just another album. From album to album, we like to mix things up and change things a little bit. I guess this is more of a bigger step. We don’t want our albums to sound alike from one to the next. I wouldn’t say its an evolution, I’d say its another step to experiment with our ideas.

Three tracks leaked before the album came out, and some diehard fans voiced their disappointment in them on the Internet. Were you surprised at this reaction?
MOUNIER I was surprised how thoughtless some people can be in their comments. I mean, constructive criticism is always good. That’s something everyone should take. But I was surprised at how many people are, like, really overreacting. But they’ve been seeing us live now, in Mexico and Europe and now in the States, and the reaction has changed a lot on the forums and on the internet. People are starting to understand what the mood of the album is. So that’s helping. But some of it was quite funny.
MATT McGACHY We take it in stride.
MOUNIER You have to.
McGACHY If you listen to our intro tonight, it’s sort of a response to this.

A lot of the criticism was focused on the singing on the album.
MOUNIER It’s just, like 10 percent, or 15 percent.
McGACHY It’s just that it’s something that the fans never would have anticipated or expected from us.

Do you take critiques from fans and critics into consideration when writing a new album?
McGACHY Well, it’s about how the person’s criticism is presented. How they present it will influence how we perceive it. People come across saying, “Oh, I really don’t like this new album,” but it’s constructive criticism.
MOUNIER People say we should change the name of the band. [Mockingly] Oh yeah, we’ll do that. We’ll do that suggestion.
McGACHY What’s next, trying Ozzfest? That was an insult from one of the shows.
MOUNIER I mean, yeah. Yeah, why not. We’ll do Ozzfest.

Where do you draw your inspiration from when writing a new album?
MOUNIER The mind frame that we’re at in the moment, where some stuff comes out, determines how it comes out. If it’s no good we’ll scrap it right away, but if it sounds interesting we’ll go with it. Everything Cryptopsy does is influenced by different styles of music. We’re not metal-influenced only. Listening to Massive Attack, I had an idea for a song. You just take bits and pieces of all these sorts of styles of music and you put them in this melting pot.

So, there are two new additions to the band. How are they working out?
MOUNIER Well, it’s just one, because the keyboardist is not a full-time member. We had plans to do something more, but there wasn’t as much keyboards as anticipated, so we don’t really need to carry an extra person.
McGACHY For one song.
MOUNIER And Matt is doing amazing. People are blown away by what he can do, and we’re getting really good reactions to the live shows.

How did you fellas meet?
MOUNIER Matt plays in a band called 3 Mile Scream, and I was at one of his shows. At that time we had in mind that we were, uh, looking for another singer, so I was paying attention to different bands that were playing. It was like a festival thing, and I heard him singing and he sounded really powerful to me and on key for the clean parts and stuff. I talked to him and offered him a chance to try out. It took a little bit of thinking.
McGACHY Yup, and upon some reflection, I played with them again while I was in 3 Mile, and I was like, I have to be in this band. So, I called them back and I went for some auditions, and that’s it.


How has Matt helped build Cryptopsy’s sound?
MOUNIER Matt is a singer. Matt has control of his voice. He’s a professional as much as we’re professionals in playing our instruments. He’s added a lot of professionalism and energy as far as that goes.

How big of a role did you have in writing the new album, Matt?
McGACHY Well, they already had many of the songs completed, so I came in and just worked on my vocal parts. I sort of came in for the jamming process, I didn’t do much writing.
MOUNIER The next time around.
McGACHY Yeah, the next time.


INTERVIEW BY VALERIE McQUEEN

Cryptopsy's The Unspoken King (Century Media) was released on June 24, 2008.