More than 30 years into their career, Montreal death metal innovators Cryptopsy return with their ninth studio album, An Insatiable Violence. Revered within the extreme metal world for such classics as 1994’s Blasphemy Made Flesh and 1996’s None So Vile, Cryptopsy deliver again on An Insatiable Violence. Coming out of the pandemic, the band set a goal of issuing a new record every two years. That started with 2023’s As Gomorrah Burns, and continues 21 months later with An Insatiable Violence.
Speaking while on tour in Manchester, vocalist Matt McGachy gave us the lowdown on the album’s creation and concept, drummer Flo Mounier’s incredible skills, his long-running Vox and Hops podcast, and more.
Brendan Crabb: Cryptopsy has quickly issued a follow-up to As Gomorrah Burns. Has the band been enjoying a real creative streak recently?
Matt McGachy: What’s happening is that Flo turned 50 years old. We appreciate Flo as the legacy member of the band, and I look at him like an Olympic athlete. And there comes a point in Olympic athletes’ lives that they can no longer compete in the Olympics. So, there will come a day that Flo is no longer physically capable of performing at the level that he has to perform at. And that will be the end of the band.
So, we have a 10-year plan. Physically, he’s in great shape, so we could go longer than that. But we are planning to release more music, more frequently for that reason because we are the longest-standing Cryptopsy lineup. We are the Cryptopsy lineup that has existed for years now… We know what Cryptopsy means. We understand the legacy of Cryptopsy, and we still want to create relevant music. We’re going to keep writing and forcing ourselves to do creative, uncomfortable things so we can keep sharing new music with the fans.
An Insatiable Violence represents another relatively succinct record for the band at 33 minutes in length.
We like digestible material; I like my metal to be digestible. As Gomorrah Burns was around 34 minutes, None So Vile is 32-33 minutes. I’d much rather have a record that is content packed and if somebody wants more afterwards, all they have to do is push ‘play’ again. That makes me happy, as opposed to someone getting bored and not finishing a record.
It’s fast, groovy and technical – therefore easily recognisable as Cryptopsy. Is there a concerted effort not to stick to a formula though?
Chris (Donaldson, guitar) writes all the music with Flo. Oli (Pinard, bass) throws in some riffs here and there, but Chris and Flo are primarily the songwriters. And Chris is the ultimate hater. He hates everything, and he looks at Cryptopsy and his writing and everything that we do business wise through the eyes of a hater, and how can they hate something that we’re creating? So, he’s very diligent in choosing what goes into new Cryptopsy music.
We had aspired to create a groovier record. We toured so much last year, we did over 140 shows. And just looking at crowd responses while writing a new record really just encouraged us to write something that was groovier, something that was dark and dirty, while still being melodic and memorable, and trying to repeat sections just a little bit longer so that people who don’t know the band can understand what the hell is going on. Because there’s always a lot of stuff going on when Cryptopsy is playing.
And the new record features some of the band’s fastest material, which is not an insignificant statement. How does Cryptopsy play faster after all of this time?
Flo has unlocked the swivel technique with his feet over the past few years, and we’ve utilized it a few times. Cryptopsy tends to have like significant, like specific tempos that they write through. That’s how Chris and Flo always talk about writing material. There’s the grind, the blast. These are all different tempos that fall very well within Flo’s strengths. But he has been utilizing the swivel technique to get really fast bass-drums in there. And there was a gravity blast on one of the tracks, which is something that Chris typically doesn’t like, but it was required for that moment.
Speaking of Chris, what’s like to work with as a producer? Is he a tough taskmaster?
He’s like a prison warden. He’s on our ass and really hard. He’s really hard with us on purpose, because he knows what we can do and he brings the best out of us.
When I track my vocals, I go there and I live at his house and we track about two songs a day. Then at night we listen to those two songs and then we criticize them and make little notes of what we’re going to fix the next day. It’s a very cool, immersive experience, and he’s a genius. He’s so much fun to be around. We laugh a lot, but he’s extremely hard on us, and he’s extremely hard on himself first and foremost.
The new LP has links to the band’s history. The cover art for An Insatiable Violence was created by late vocalist Martin Lacroix, and former member Mike DiSalvo makes a guest appearance. Was it important after all this time that the group references its own history?
We have such a strong connection to the legacy of Cryptopsy. There would be no Cryptopsy without all the members that passed through before I took over vocals or before I was here. So, I’ve always just been enamoured with everyone that’s been in the band. I had Mike on my podcast five years ago probably at this point, and I had never met him before. We just kicked it off. We had such a good night drinking a bunch of beers in Montreal. Now he’s moved back to the States, so whenever we come through, he comes out to the shows whenever we’re close to him. He’s like standing front of stage, in the pit watching us. And his children come with him.
And then Martin was just always wonderful too. He would always come out. He was a tattoo artist primarily, that’s how he would make his money. He would always come out to shows in Germany, in Essen where he was living and he came up and sang with us a few years ago. That was really fun; it was really nice to be back with him. He was just a wonderful human. He was so much fun, so exciting. We were really happy to be able to let him put a creative mark on Cryptopsy’s career. We were very honoured that his family were open to the idea of us using a one of his pieces. His cousin sent us, or his nephew, I can’t remember, sent us pictures of all the pieces that he had in his collection that were still available. The cover art itself is phenomenal.
Both the previous album and the new LP feature an over-arching concept. Are you at the point whereby you have to incorporate a concept when writing lyrics for Cryptopsy?
I don’t like writing without a concept, I feel lost. I feel like especially with my podcast, I’ve interviewed so many people, almost just about 500 episodes. And when someone doesn’t have something to actually say, it bums me out. So, I have this tiny little platform called Cryptopsy where I can actually talk about stuff that is impactful for the human beings across the world.
I talked about the internet, our relationship with the internet on the previous record. On this one I’m talking about our relationship with social media. I know that for myself, I’m extremely addicted to social media and those days that I just sit on my phone and I’m scrolling, doom scrolling. I feel like shit. I feel depressed. I feel broken and I know that I can’t be the only one.
I like writing concept records, it’s something that just directs my vision and where my creativity should be pointed. So, for this one I had a dream, which is the craziest part of it. A vivid dream of someone that is fixing a machine and then at night they strap themselves into the machine and the machine tortures them all night. And they love it. And they wake up the next day, and they fix the machine again to make it more efficient, more pleasurable, the torturous experience at night. And it’s basically the human race’s relationship with social media.
Today, as an example, we posted a new reel. I spent a moment tinkering and working over the caption. I showed the guys, got their approval, we edited it a little bit. Then I posted it, and then I sat back and I tortured myself by reading all the comments, or watching the interactions, or the lack of interactions, or whatever. So, it’s basically the human race’s relationship with social media is what the new album is all about. And it’s all so manicured as well; so much social media content that’s posted is incredibly well-curated. Everyone very carefully edits their photos, captions and videos… It’s an illusion. It’s an illusion that we all present that we’re all doing great and wonderfully, but deep down inside everyone is totally alone and sad (laughs).
You mentioned earlier about playing faster than ever on this new album. I’ve asked other bands this in the past, but is there a point whereby extreme metal can’t be any heavier and more extreme? Is there a limit at some point?
There’s a physicality limit, that’s for sure, but these little deathcore kids keep inventing new sounds with their mouths, which is exciting.
I think it’s going to get to a point where it’s going to become so intense that there’ll probably be some like AI robot shit involved, and it’s going to be just so extreme and out there that it’s just going to have a complete reverse effect where people are going to go back to, and it’s already happening now with the like resurgence of ‘90s death metal, of raw, nasty-sounding things.
That’s what’s going to happen. It’s going to go so extreme, so fast, so technical that no one’s going to care because it’s not real. And then it’s just going to go back to the roots basically of human capability playing extreme music. So, I think that yes, it will keep getting pushed, but people are not going to appreciate it as much as a human effort.
I’m thankful for deathcore. The deathcore pop is good for all extreme music. Will Ramos (from Lorna Shore) has normalized extreme vocals for a new generation and that is something that is commendable.
Shifting topics, you mentioned your podcast earlier, and you’re sipping on a beer right now. I know you’ve mentioned before that Vox and Hops, which combines your passions for heavy music and craft beer was an outlet for you during the pandemic. What purpose does the show serve in your life in 2025?
(Note – this interview was conducted prior to the recent announcement that the podcast was going on an indefinite hiatus).
The podcast was fantastic for me, because I started it because I felt that I had no other identity in the music industry except for Cryptopsy. And in the same year, well, Chris’s studio has always been prolifically doing well. Oli told me that he was going to join Cattle (Decapitation). And then Flo told me that he found a new singer for his project with Vltimas, and that it was going to be David Vincent. So, I was like, “fuck, I’ve got to find something for myself that’s going to keep me busy ‘cause my guys are so busy.”
So, I started a podcast and it was something started like a passion project. Just pushing my introverted self out of my comfort zone to speak to any people and just connect with people.
The first 100 episodes were done face-to-face in bars, backstage or in tour buses and vans. Then the pandemic hit and then I started doing it over Zoom. And I’m almost at 500 episodes.
The podcast has brought me a lot of amazing things connection wise. I’ve got a bunch of friends in the beer industry because of the podcast, I get a lot of free beer. My project manager side has increased tenfold because of the organization that you need to have when you run a podcast and drop all those episodes that frequently. And I’ve been I’ve been using all those skills and bringing them to the band now.
I know you have a day job as well – how do you balance all of that?
For myself, more and more I don’t have a full-time job. The band is doing well recently. I work one day a week in childcare. If not, I stay home with my kids, and the other members have jobs here and there, but Chris, his studio work is the main thing.
Any famous last words?
Enjoy the record people, check it out. It’s an interesting Cryptopsy record. It honors the legacy of Cryptopsy while still remaining relevant. I believe that was a monumental task, but I feel like we’ve accomplished it.
(interview published June 19, 2025)
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