Cryptopsy

Cryptopsy are extreme. They sound like a dozen Kalashnikovs being fired into a tin shed. Relentless, furious, crushing metal. But they are technical wizards. Seeing Christian Donaldson work the fret board is truly inspiring, unleashing venomous torrents of shreddage while headbanging like a rabid horse.

Their technique is almost mathematical – syncopated, spasmodic, but ordered chaos. Most death metal bands appropriate the pentagram as their icon. Cryptopsy ‘s sound is more like an isosceles.

Flo Mounier is wicked on the drums, hammering out the most complex patterns without breaking a sweat. Matt McGachy is genuinely frightening. He has hair like a warlock’s – down to his glutes, which he flings around like his head’s in a tumble dryer, achieving a radius wider than the wingspan of an albatross. Collectively they must have about five meters of hair.

McGachy wails like a pterodactyl, screeching and growling with amazing range.
Their set covers their entire repertoire spanning twenty years from their first album Blasphemy Made Flesh to their most recent self-titled effort. The crowd is churning and writhing to ‘Red-Skinned Scapegoat’ and other crashing tracks.

Revocation takes their music to full throttle whenever they perform live. The band takes both death metal and thrash metal and blends it together for one intense sound. Although their music is often very technical, they are able to create intriguing melodies that draw the audience into their music as well as convey a vintage metal sound to their music.

Guitarist and lead vocalist, David Davidson, creates some of the fastest, heaviest music and is an incredibly interesting songwriter. He is able to throw his songs in totally different directions with tempo changes as well as taking a melodic song and turning it into something atonal. David Davidson acquired many interesting and complex techniques when he was studying jazz at Berklee College of Music and constantly is using these unique methods such as polyrhythm into his music. Revocation’s other guitarist, Dan Gargiulo, also adds depths to Revocation’s music. He often accompanies Davidson with shredding dual guitar solos as well as laying down some fast, rhythmic guitar strumming in a death metal style. The band’s drumming sounds like an explosion is going off with rapid double bass playing and the harsh clashing of the cymbals.

David Davidson’s singing style is also very abrasive and stuns the audience with its sheer power. He often sings in deep growls that add a dark, haunting element to the music. Davidson is always inciting the audience to start up mosh pits and act as crazy as they can. Davidson remains so intense during the performances that whenever he speaks the name of the next song he is about to play he delivers it in a very low pitch growl. Revocation plays a great variety of songs during their shows such as some old tracks like “Unattained” as well as some interesting instrumental tracks like “ Across Forests and Fjords”.

It is easy to pick out the influences in Revocation’s music like Slayer, Metallica, and Exodus, but their music is also highly original and distinctive. With the band coming out of the DIY Boston metal scene they have managed to maintain a strong sense of giving every performance their all, and whenever they walk on stage, you can expect them to blow you away with their exhilarating metal performance.