One of the torchbearing forefathers of extreme metal, Cryptopsy have found ways to experiment while staying true to a vision of controlled chaos. Their latest album, An Insatiable Violence, is one more testament to their ability to craft songs that can reach blistering levels of speed and brutality, all the while still retaining an ability to be oddly memorable. We caught up with vocalist Matt McGachy to get his thoughts on the group’s latest, as well as hear his lyrical insights, thoughts on what he’s gained from his long-running Vox&Hops podcast, his vocal evolution, and even a look back at their self-titled album.
Dead Rhetoric: How does An Insatiable Violence fit into the grand scheme of things in Cryptopsy’s discography?
Matt McGachy: We wrote a record that we aspired to make far more digestible. A digestible Cryptopsy record, which is extremely difficult to do. But I feel like we have accomplished it. We did that by making certain elements be far more groove-oriented, using a lot more melodies, and more darkness, and using more sections that repeated themselves for longer than previous releases and leaning back towards Blasphemy Made Flesh and None So Vile. Those albums really have sections that repeat themselves far more than the latter records, so that was something that we aspired to do.
It wasn’t easy, it was hard to write digestible Cryptopsy because it’s still a very extreme band. But I feel like we brought something to this record that a first time listener can bite their teeth into and understand the songs more than previous releases.
Dead Rhetoric: I like the phrasing of ‘digestible Cryptopsy,’ because for the average music listener, they are still going to hear it and go, “Oh my God!” but for those that dabble in death metal, and coming off of the last few releases, you can hear more massive grooves.
McGachy: We toured so much for As Gomorrah Burns, we were writing while on tour so we asked what was working and what the sections were that without fail, be it a small or big room, that got the pit going. It’s always the groove sections. We definitely wanted to meld the technicality and songwriting with strong groove-oriented sections.
Dead Rhetoric: So did the thought of playing it live impact any of your decisions with the material itself? Being able to take the new music live and be able to get people right into it?
McGachy: We are always analyzing, we are never comfortable in Cryptopsy. It’s something that has been happening throughout the generations of Cryptopsy. They were never comfortable, they never rested on laurels, or they would have kept writing None So Vile over and over again. But they didn’t do that, they went in a completely different direction and wrote Whisper Supremacy, which was extremely challenging. We are always uncomfortable and analyzing.
Christian Donaldson, who is at the helm of writing for Cryptopsy at this point, hand-in-hand with Flo Mounier. He [Chris] writes the riffs, and he is the biggest hater. He hates everything. He hates us, in the way that haters hate us, so when any comment is made online, he has already said. So we are never surprised anymore. We are just never comfortable. We are constantly striving to create something that, first-off, we enjoy, and also honors the legacy of Cryptopsy, and it’s still relevant in 2025. We are walking on a very fine, thin blade [laughs], but I feel like we did it quite well on this one.
Dead Rhetoric: Could you talk about the lyrics to “Fools Last Acclaim” and “The Art of Emptiness.”
McGachy: So it’s all basically on human nature and the relationship with social media. I had this crazy vivid dream, which I never have, but I did in August 2023. A person wakes up every day and has this machine. At night, they strap themselves into the machine and the machine tortures them and they love it. While it tortures them, they are wondering how they can make it even better. So the next day, they wake up and implement those changes in order to torture themselves more exquisitely. Up to the point where they are almost dead, but they aren’t quite there. That’s what they are trying to do every day.
So I took that metaphor and paired human nature and social media. The machine is social media, and our relationship with social media. It’s torturous and toxic, and tearing us apart. It’s tearing us away from each other even though it brings us together. It’s bringing together fallacies of ourselves. We aren’t who we are online. That’s not who we truly are. It’s us creating this ideal image of ourselves, and those are interacting together online. When you finally meet someone who you have been talking to for many years, it’s still like meeting a stranger. You are finally getting behind the curtain, just like the Wizard of Oz.
So “Fools Last Acclaim” was a song I got from scouring and finding things that were negatively impactful to humans, due to social media. It’s about risk takers. People who do those crazy stunts, like climbing mountains or buildings or scaffoldings/cranes, just to get the shot. If you reread those lyrics with that in mind, you will understand it much better. “I cherish the darkness, I yearn for its touch. These life-taking chances exhilarate me so much. I will be the one that you all adore.” Just striving to be that person who took the picture and took that extra chance so that they can be idolized. It’s not something that I would do – I don’t even jump into the crowd every night [laughs]! Not my thing!
“The Art of Emptiness” is about people who are anorexic and people who showcase their journey of anorexia. I think it’s a little passe and it’s not something that is totally happening again, but the whole cyclical style – you know, that low jean, midriff thing that all the younger girls are doing now, it’s what they did when I was in my teens in the ‘90s. It’s this hyper-idolization of thinness. That’s what the song is all about. This content creator gets a little bit of recognition, so they post some hyper-thin content, and then get so many reactions. They take it further to see how skeletal they can become. To the point where they can’t do anything and are just on the floor. They can’t even move, but they are still getting content out of it, and people are still interacting with them. But then we get to the point where it’s like, “look how gross this is,” but the content creator doesn’t see that, they only see what they want. It’s sad. The whole record is really sad [laughs].
Dead Rhetoric: I know you like the lyrics to stay more realistic. Was this social media piece something that stemmed from COVID and you were able to see more of those online interactions?
McGachy: I started a podcast in 2018, and since then, I have become addicted to social media to promote this thing. I just got trapped in it. I guess the pandemic was a part of it. But I do like to write hyper-realistic themes because I am on a very small soap box right now. I have a small opportunity to actually say something. I think that is important. Having released almost 500 episodes of my podcast, when I sit down and talk to a singer and we talk about lyrics, and they have nothing to say, I find that incredibly boring [laughs]. It’s like a missed opportunity to have some sort of an impactful statement on the world. I use this tiny soap box to spout some good through darkness and sadness, but if it helps one or two people re-examine their relationship with social media, then I have done a good thing.
Dead Rhetoric: I was going to wait til later to bring it up, but as you said, you’ve done the Vox&Hops podcast for quite some time now. What have you particularly enjoyed about opening this particular window into the scene?
McGachy: It opened up so many windows for myself. First off, I am far more comfortable speaking during interviews. I used to speak and then this other voice in my brain would be like, “What did you say? This doesn’t make any sense! Now you aren’t saying anything!” That’s gone, I can just talk all the time. My contacts within the industry have exploded. I have made a bunch of friends across the globe, I have released almost 100 beers across the globe, it’s been just wonderful. But I just recorded episode 499 today, it’s sitting right over there in the tour bus, and I’m announcing that the podcast is going on hiatus after the 500th episode, which is going up next week if I can get it all together on tour.
500th episode and then it’s going on hiatus. The podcast will take a break, it’s not over but I just need to focus on Cryptopsy right now. It’s something that has been swirling around in the back of my mind for the past year. I just had this angsty feeling about it, that I needed to focus on Cryptopsy and my family and friends. There are so many hours in a day. The Vox&Hops events will continue, the Vox&Hops beers will continue, the reviews will continue, but the podcast needs to take a break.
Dead Rhetoric: It seems like you have a pretty relentless schedule with it.
McGachy: I never stop. I got to a point where I knew I had to take breaks, so two or three years ago, I implemented seasons, where I would do three months on and one month off. Over the past year, I found myself really looking forward to the breaks, which is not a healthy thing.
Dead Rhetoric: It’s good that you can acknowledge that and recognize the need for change.
McGachy: It’s really important right now. The band needs me, and it’s going to keep getting busier and I need to focus. But I have taken all of those skills I have acquired with Vox&Hops and put them with me, into the band.
Dead Rhetoric: You have been in the band for quite a long time, and the current line-up has been around for almost 15 years. What’s the band dynamic at this point?
McGachy: It’s pain [laughs]! We are a jokingly humorous band. We like to make fun of each other. We like to poke each other and push each other, not physically but sometimes. To become better and to hone our instruments and be on top of our shit. It’s a healthy dynamic. When I joined the band, it was unhealthy. It was very fragmented and there was no clear leader. Since Jon [Levasseur] left, and it was Chris, Flo, Olivier [Pinard] and myself, we had no choice than to pull shit together and make it work. But it took a few years for us to really get comfortable being this new era of Cryptopsy.
Chris had the hardest task with that. He felt like such an imposter writing Jon Levasseur-esque riffs and he has really struggled with that – to find his own voice, while remaining true to Cryptopsy’s roots and it’s legacy. So once the pandemic hit, we had been on a bit of an upswing right before it. In 2019 we toured Asia and we stopped, because we were going to write. Then the pandemic hit and we wrote during the pandemic and it took way too long to get As Gomorrah Burns out. We did that, and then it was a critical success – the fans and critics enjoyed it. So we wanted to keep pushing that and feeling this.
Flo is almost 51 years old. He is in top shape. We wanted to keep utilizing this physicality that he has, until he can’t do it anymore. We want to keep pushing. We have a lot more in the tank. We want to keep releasing interesting music to the fans, and Olivier just made a huge decision, which was a personal decision to not do both bands. He was in Cattle [Decapitation] and Cryptopsy, and we have replaced him on countless tours for the past six years. We are replacing him right now, but as of now, moving forward he will always be with us. He has chosen to come home to Cryptopsy, and we are really happy.
Dead Rhetoric: How do you walk the line of balancing the legacy of what Cryptopsy has done and attempting to evolve as a band? Where does that put you as a band?
McGachy: It puts us in a legacy category that is still dropping interesting new music. How many other bands can say that they did what we did on this record? It honestly honors the legacy of Cryptopsy while still staying super relevant. There are so many bands that just make the same record over and over again. We are discontent doing that. We want to be innovative, we want to push ourselves. Chris is already stressed about the next record. I have a concept for it and I’m ready to build it, but he is already stressing because he doesn’t want to be redundant. He wants to be fresh. We don’t want to copy what is happening now. That’s not our plan. We aren’t asking what Aborted, Lorna Shore, or Cattle Decapitation are doing? What is working? That’s not what we are doing.
We write stuff for us. So the biggest thing that we implemented on this writing session – anything that sounded like black metal we threw it out or altered it. We didn’t want to do that. We didn’t want to mix black metal and death metal. It’s been done way too much. We want to do something far more interesting. We brought a darkness, a dirtiness, a sense of unease. A sense of discomfort. A sense of being hungover. A disequilibrium where you feel like you are not settled. That’s what we wanted to blend with death metal. We want people to feel horrible [laughs] and mix that with death metal. Black metal doesn’t do that. It does in some instances, but not to the extent of “I feel horrible right now.” We wanted it weird and dirty.
Dead Rhetoric: You had been independent for a while, then you went from Nuclear Blast to Season of Mist for An Insatiable Violence. Are you of the mindset that the label route is the best for the group moving forward?
McGachy: Honestly yes, I do. Then there’s this knee-jerk reaction after watching what Archspire just did [laughs], but we are very happy at Season of Mist. They have been taking wonderful care of us. We were happy at Nuclear Blast too, we had aspired to keep that relationship, but we just couldn’t see eye to eye on a few things. That opened a huge opportunity for us to move somewhere else. As Gomorrah Burns was a one-album deal, we fulfilled that, so we had the opportunity to discuss the future but it didn’t pan out. But luckily it did with Season of Mist and we are really happy.
The crew over there is amazing – Gordon, Sabine, and the social media and PR crew – Sebastian and Will are just phenomenal. We really feel important, which is nice. It’s not something that I have had in the past. Not to throw rocks at anyone. I feel like they take this seriously, and we are excited about that.
Dead Rhetoric: Looking at your own vocal evolution since starting with the band, what do you feel are some of the biggest lessons you have learned in developing your style?
McGachy: The biggest thing I learned over the years was to just relax, and to just breathe and let my voice do what it needs to do. For The Unspoken King, the self-titled, and Tome I and half of Tome II…if not more than that, I was constantly pushing too hard and trying to be brutal. It sort of worked against me. I had to step back and realize that it was a physicality thing. The resonance chamber is there, and I just had to let the air and the flesh do the work. Since I had that awakening, it changed everything. I was stepping into the recording studio for Tome II and I just let out this false chord scream and Chris was like, “What is that? Why aren’t we using that more?”
So we started using it more, and then those parts on Tome II quickly became Chris and my favorite sections. So after that came out, then I did all of my Lord Worm songs with that voice when we toured, and I did the Mike DeSalvo era stuff in my previous voice. After the pandemic, Chris and I decided to do just the new false chord scream. It’s so much better. My voice is much healthier. I don’t have to warm up, I don’t have to do anything. I can do it right now. It’s always ready, and that’s wonderful.
Dead Rhetoric: Lots of people tend to discuss The Unspoken King when looking back, but what are your thoughts about the self-titled album circa 2025?
McGachy: That’s a cool record. We feel like it’s a bit underappreciated actually. We were talking about it the other day. Jon came back and wrote. Its an interesting story actually, because we were missing a guitarist and Flo called Jon, in like a hail mary pass, just taking a chance. Jon said, “No, I’m not ready.” He had left the band and hadn’t touched his guitar in seven years. Then he calls Flo back five months later, and us being super-active back then were doing nothing, and he says, “I’m ready now.”
So they started jamming at Flo’s house. They jammed for another five months and Jon showed up with full songs that he had come up with in the jams that he needed to work out on the guitar. It was a very interesting experience to meet him and watch his creative process. He’s one of the most creative guitarists I have ever played with. He’s an interesting individual [laughs], everyone has their quirks right?
For myself, I was using that old technique and pushing too hard. Lyrically, it’s the first record that I came up with a concept that opened up my eyes to an easier way to write cohesive lyrics that all fall under the same concept. It was something that really helped level me and settle me out of, ‘what can I write about?’ I was ambiguous, so that really helped me with that. It’s a great record. Luckily now, with Season of Mist re-releasing it, more people will get a chance to get their hands on it. There are a lot of great songs on that record.
Dead Rhetoric: You mentioned before that with the podcast and talking to bands, you have a bigger window into the scene at this point. What would you prefer to see more of in extreme music, or at least have people try?
McGachy: There’s so much happening right now that’s really amazing. I have been on tour now for 30 days so I haven’t heard anything that has come out, since when you are on tour you don’t listen to metal. I ‘forced’ myself to listen to the new Rivers of Nihil because I love them – they are wonderful humans and I’ve been a fan of theirs for many years. I wanted to see where they were at, especially with Andy Thomas more in the vocal seat and composing, so I was excited to see how that would come around. I listened to the new Callous Daoboys and I’m a big fan of them. But I haven’t listened to anything…
I would like bands to take more chances. I would like bands to be more provocative, in a respectful way. I would like them to be more mindful and to have more nurturing messages, the way that we are finding something there is an issue about, and presenting it in a very brutal way on the record. But I think more of it, the message we are presenting is something that is positive and good-natured, I’d like to see more of that in metal. Less ego, but I can’t control that.
Dead Rhetoric: What do you mean by provocative?
McGachy: Our second music video was so censored, I was pissed. It shouldn’t have been censored. It’s very strange. But when someone clicks on a TV show and it’s 18+ they can watch whatever they want. But YouTube still censors or limits everything, because they want ad-driven revenue. That drives me crazy. It’s all about the money and not the art. So this amazing French director came up with this amazing music video, which was a parallel story associated with my dream and the lyrics that are associated with dreams, and created its own universe that could be basically a Black Mirror episode. But when you watch Black Mirror, there is nothing censored.
So I want people to be provocative, thoughtfully. Where they are thinking outside the box and pushing the extremes to a higher level in an intellectual way. Not in a ‘this is so gruesome, it’s horrible.’ I don’t want to see…people are going to drum even faster in the next ten years and playing faster. They have to write songs, that’s the most important thing. We can play faster, we can write faster. We just choose not to, to keep the song. The song is everything, and we are working around it in our capabilities.
Dead Rhetoric: With Vox&Hops you have done some beer releases. What are your favorite flavors of beer if you are going to put your hand into making something?
McGachy: I love beer, it’s a huge part of my identity. As a beer nerd, the first correct answer to say is that I like lagers. I like LUKR poured lagers with all of the foam, the mliko pours where it is just all foam and just a little bit of sip, I love it. It’s delicious. But honestly, when I go to my beer store and pick up a beer, I drink hazy IPAs. I am a haze-whore, through and through, I can beer as much of a beer geek that I am, but I love big, monstrous, hazy IPAs – 6, 7, 8% IPAs.
There’s a bunch of great breweries here in Montreal. My friends started probably the best brewery in North America in the next two to three years, it is going to be that. It’s probably the best in Canada already. It’s called Messorem Bracitorium, and it’s dudes from Despised Icon, Ion Dissonance, The Last Felony, and they are running a brewery now and they are crushing it. They made incredible IPAs, they make good pilsners, good lagers, and some good wild stuff, good stouts, but they make monstrous haze.
Dead Rhetoric: What are your plans for the rest of this year?
McGachy: We have a big tour with Nile in North America through early September to mid October. We are going across the upper states, alongside The Last 10 Seconds of Life and Cognitive. We have announced that we are going to Japan already, and if I am flying to Japan in December I am going to do other shows around Japan. That’s the beginning of the All So Vile tour. None So Vile turns 30 next year and we are going to do a massive world tour celebrating None So Vile. We will not be playing it in its entirety, but we will be playing more than half and a lot of it, since we are still promoting the new record.