More than 30 years into its career, Montreal death metal band Cryptopsy returns with its ninth studio album, “An Insatiable Violence,” set for release on June 20, 2025, via Season of Mist. Pre-order the album here, and watch the music video for the new song “Until There’s Nothing Left” below.
“We had to write the majority of ‘An Insatiable Violence’ while on the Death to All tour, which was something we’d never done before,” vocalist Matt McGachy said. “Flo [Mounier, drums] and Chris [Donaldson, guitar] really put their hats on. It was a feat.”
“Ever since COVID, our focus is clearer, a lot of work gets done faster, and we push each other to get it done,” Mounier said.
In addition to featuring some of the fastest passages Cryptopsy has ever recorded, the controlled chaos of its signature sound is offset by passages that ease off the gas pedal enough to allow listeners to come up for some air.
“It’s a continuation of As Gomorrah Burns,” McGachy says, “We really wanted to make a groovy record, and we think we’ve done it.”
It seems as though nothing is scarier than real life right now, and “An Insatiable Violence” is a commentary on today’s society as though filtered through the transgressive, countercultural perspectives of J.G. Ballard and David Cronenberg.
“It all came to me in a dream in August 2023,” McGachy said. “I woke up, I took my phone, and I wrote down the title of the record. It’s about a person that wakes up every day and fixes a machine. Tinkers with it, tries to make it better all day long, sweating in the sun, and then at night, they strap themself into this machine and the machine tortures them, and they love it. Then they wake up the next day and fix it again to make it more efficient, to keep harnessing it, and then just keep doing it over and over again.”
While fantastically twisted, “An Insatiable Violence” mirrors our often toxic relationship with social media. “We’re continuously trying to feed this algorithm of the machine while it’s totally tearing us apart socially and psychologically,” McGachy said. “’The Nimis Adoration’ is about mukbang, these Korean people that eat too much food on the Internet. Piles and piles of food. A poor girl died on a live cam”.
At the center of the album is the mind-boggling percussion skill of Mounier, arguably the most imposing Canadian drummer not named Peart, who dominates such standout tracks as “Dead Eyes Replete,” “Fools Last Acclaim” and “Embrace the Nihility.”
“I look at Flo as an Olympic athlete,” McGachy said. “I want to push this guy to go a lot faster than Cryptopsy’s previous releases. We have so much more to give, and I wanted just drain it all out of him while he’s still at the top of his game, because he is. He’s crushing.”
“I mix up a lot of a physical activity, like resistance training into the drumming,” Mounier said. “I recently developed new techniques that make it easier to go even faster, so I tried to push that on this album. My focus is now more on dynamics and the touch of the snare, a certain snap of the snare, a rim shot on the snare, the toms, a light touch or a hard touch. Live, I can really let go, you know, give the sound guy a hard time.”
For McGachy, who has always boasted a powerful, guttural death growl, the rigors of touring have enabled him to evolve as a vocalist. In addition to ear-scraping screams that rival George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher, McGachy unleashes the deepest, filthiest death growls of his career.
“’Gomorrah’ was the first album that I recorded with my full false chord scream, which is something that I’d only just touched on ‘The Book of Suffering: Tome II’ in little sections,” he said. “We did at least 140 shows since ‘Gomorrah.’ I exclusively did my false chords during all the songs that we performed on ‘None So Vile’ and ‘Blasphemy Made Flesh.’ And then, when we did go into the studio for ‘An Insatiable Violence,’ Chris would be like, ‘Deeper, you must go deeper!’”
Another vocalist from Cryptopsy’s lore pops back into the booth on “An Insatiable Violence.”
“When we were recording the vocals for ‘Embrace the Nihility,’ Chris had the idea of ending the song with the same vocal pattern as the end of ‘… And Then It Passes,’” McGachy said. “We figured if we were going to rip ourselves off, then we may as well get the real thing. We were honored that Mike DiSalvo accepted. We are all huge fans of Cryptopsy’s DiSalvo era. His vocals on this album are an ultra Easter egg for our fans.”
In addition to the praise “As Gomorrah Burns” received from within the metal scene, the 2023 album achieved a first for Cryptopsy: earning the band its first JUNO Award in 2024 for Metal/Hard Music Album of the Year. “We had little-to-no expectations of winning,” McGachy said. ”We didn’t even go to the ceremonies because we were on tour in Europe with Atheist. On the day we found out that we won, we had a crazy 18-hour drive from Derby to Germany, plus a ferry ride. But we still partied for 48 hours. Flo bought an expensive bottle of champagne.”
“An Insatiable Violence” track list:
1. The Nimis Adoration (4:10)
2. Until There’s Nothing Left (3:59)
3. Dead Eyes Replete (3:57)
4. Fools Last Acclaim (3:26)
5. The Art of Emptiness (4:16)
6. Our Great Deception (4:21)
7. Embrace the Nihility (3:50)
8. Malicious Needs (5:52)
Cryptopsy is giving its fans overseas an early helping of “An Insatiable Violence.” In May 2025, the band will play “Until There’s Nothing Left” and other songs off the new album while touring Europe alongside Decapitated, Warbringer and Carnation.
“Europe, get ready!” the band said. “With over 30 dates across the continent, this tour promises relentless energy, crushing riffs and unforgettable nights.”
Get tickets here.
Tour dates:
May 1 – Kopervik, NO @ Karmbygeddon*
May 3 – London, UK @ Incineration Festival
May 4 – Exeter, UK @ Phoenix
May 5 – Birmingham, UK @ Asylum
May 6 – Newcastle, UK @ Anarchy Brewery
May 7 – Glasgow, UK @ Slay
May 8 – Manchester, UK @ Academy 2
May 9 – Swansea, UK @ Sin City
May 10 – Nottingham, UK @ Rescue Rooms
May 11 – Norwich, UK @ The Waterfront
May 13 – Lille, FR @ The Black Lab
May 14 – Enschede, NL @ Metropool
May 15 – Munich, DE @ Backstage
May 16 – Aarau, CH @ KiFF
May 17 – Lindau, DE @ Vaudeville
May 18 – Vienna, AT @ Szene
May 19 – Budapest, HU @ Dürer Kert
May 20 Prague, CZ @ Fuchs2
May 21 – Schweinfurt, DE @ Stattbahnhof
May 22 – Dresden, DE @ Blauer Salon
May 23 – Krakow, PL @ Hype Park
May 24 – Warsaw, PL @ Proxima
May 26 – Berlin, DE @ Hole44
May 27 – Aarhus, DK @ Voxhall
May 28 – Hamburg, DE @ Logo
May 29 – Vechta, DE @ Gulfhaus
May 30 – Dortmund, DE @ Junkyard
May 31 – Sint-Niklaas, BE @ Casino
June 1 – Paris, FR @ La Machine
June 2 – Esch Sur Alzette, LU @ Kulturfabrik
June 3 – Frankfurt, DE @ Das Bett
June 4 – Karlsruhe, DE @ Substage
June 5 – Milan, IT @ Legend Club
June 6 – Bologna, IT @ Locomotiv
June 7 – Lyon, FR @ Lions Metal Fest
June 8 – Maastricht, NL @ South of Heaven
*Decapitated only
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