Concert Reviews

Cryptopsy - Candiria - Origin
Apr 8th 2001
Key Club, Los Angeles, CA, USA

First off, I was very pleased at the turnout to the show, I expected maybe 100 people, and instead there were at least 500-700 people there, which is great to see, especially since there was a Sepultura show that same night.

I missed the first opening act, and showed up into Origin's first few songs. That band is intense, they have 3 vocalists who do a lot of simultaneous screaming and complex trade-off parts, you never know exact where the next scream will come. The drummer was fantastic, he looked pretty young, but was very, very relaxed while his hands flew all over the place, executing some very complex fills. The guitar sound was a bit muffled, but worked. I expect some great things from the band in the future.

Next was Candiria, and they were very strange. Sorta in a Dillenger Escape Plan vibe, the songs are very complex, strange time signatures, jumping between metal, death, jazz, fusion, all over the place. Songs become loose collections of riffs instead of repeating patterns. But the band was intense, the vocalist was this 6 foot 6 black dude who screamed his lung out, quite impressive. Not quite the stuff I like listening to on my CD player, but live they definitely had energy and intensity.

Last was Cryptopsy, and I must say, I haven't seen a band as good live since Suffocation. These guys were on, their new music is very, very complex and yet they cut off notes to complete silence like it was an afterthought. They're know for these quick one bar fills with either clean guitars and bass solos, and they pulled all of them off perfectly, like the band was sharing a single mind. Mike did his usual good job of being vicious on the mike. I won't even start on Flo, that guy cannot be stopped on drums. The sound quality was great too, the only problem is some of the songs had some sort of interference problem between the vocals and the music, like when Mike would say a word, the sound from the band disappeared from the speakers, and would reappear at top intensity the moment Mike was no longer producing sound that his microphone could pick up. They did all the songs I wanted to hear pretty much, 'Emaciate', 'Cold Hate, Warm Blood', 'Defenstration', 'Slit Your Guts', and a bunch of stuff off the new album like '...And Then It Passes', 'We Bleed', 'Voice Of Unreason', 'Shroud', 'Back To The Worms', and ended with 'Screams Go Unheard'. They returned for a single encore of 'Phobophile'. Go see this show.

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