Speak Your Peace

Ladies and Gentlemen, sit tight, please, cause I’m going to tell you the story of how the most brutal act of the 1980’s managed to become one of the most intelligent, technically-minded outfits on the scene within the span of just 5 years. Incredible, isn’t it? But a fact. When “Convicted” was released upon the world in the distant 1986, this same world wasn’t quite prepared for the outrageous aggression which poured over it for just over half an hour. Yes, that same year was the “brutal” year, but this went way beyond “Pleasure to Kill”, “Hymns to Abramelin”, “Reign in Blood”, and “Darkness Descends”. A similar “beast” was cooked in Brazil (Sarcofago’s “I.N.R.I.”), but not many of the fans in Europe and North America were able to get a hold of it at the time. So that was it, “Convicted”, the epitome of brutality, which was later only matched by the first two Napalm Death albums.

The band slowed down a bit for their next release, and later on “Stream of Consciousness” showed that they were willing to stray further away from their brutal beginnings which wasn’t met very warmly by their fanbase. Consequently the album didn’t sell well, and the guys split. However, the band mastermind Les Evans decided to give himself one more chance, and summoned other musicians under the Cryptic Slaughter flag…

The late-80’s were calling for more serious, more thought-out music, and many acts rushed to join the more demanding transition. Unfortunately, our “cryptic” friends remained under the radar and were never caught by the technical thrash “police”, probably because their stylish new exploits were still disguised under remnants of their more crossover/hardcore-based past. One merely has to give the first song (“Born Too Soon”; yes, you can’t be more right about that) a listen in order to realize what metamorphosis has taken place here: this is superb labyrinthine sterile thrash which predates Coroner’s “Grin” and Aftermath’s “Eyes of Tomorrow” by quite a few years. The guys were perhaps stunned by this unexpected display of genius themselves since they immediately pull out an old “trick” from the bag in the face of the short more dynamic crossover mechanizers “Still Born, Again” and “Insanity by the Numbers”.

The technical metal lovers may decide to stop listening after those two as the opener was apparently just a compulsive spasm of creativity which won’t be heard again; but the more patient ones will come across a sure winner right after: “Co-Exist”, another “precocious” clinical number reminiscent of Voivod at their surreal best. Prepare for bizarre crossoverisms on “Deathstyles of the Poor and Lowly” and some utterly creepy psychedelic thrash on “One Thing or Another”. The real technical fiesta starts from here, though, first with “Divided Minds” which is a hallucinogenic oddity with some impulsive headbanging sections and surprisingly memorable chorus, not to mention the great bass bottom. Then the title-track will startle you with a portion of macabre, almost doomy, riffage amidst some weird discordant guitars; before the closing “Killing Time” diversifies it all with technical exuberance and oddball decisions taking turns with intense fast-paced passages all finished with a beautiful surreal riff-section.

The band did one thing never done before: they used the more carefree side of the genre, thrash/crossover that is, to twist it through their distorted, technical perspective and come up with an effort every bit as puzzling as the works of Mekong Delta, Watchtower, Toxik, and Realm, all those having developed their complex repertoire around a much more serious base. The optimistic hardcore spirit is clearly felt all through the album, and one may argue that this approach had already been tested to an extent, two years ago by Living Death on their “Worlds Neurosis” where the “deaths” abandoned their heavy progressive “strategy” from “Protected from Reality” for the sake of uplifting frolic, technically-charged rhythms. Some similarities between the two recordings can by all means be detected, but the core of “Worlds Neurosis” is still pretty much the good old Teutonic thrash, and the “joy” witnessed is more of an after-product from the more relaxed song-structures and the goofy lyrics rather than the Germans’ burning desire to become “the European answer to D.R.I.”.

This unique delivery can be traced a bit earlier, as a matter of fact, on the Swiss Calhoun Conquer’s full-length “Lost in Oneself” (1989) where these folks gave a nerve-cracking read of the Voivod magnum opus (you know it) by “sprinkling” it with numerous leftovers from their crossover past. It remained on Swiss ground in the early-90’s and proved contagious for Lunacy who capitalized on it with one EP and two outstanding full-lengths, perhaps the finest examples of “technical thrash/crossover” ever, the “crossover” tag more thoroughly covered than on the album reviewed here.

“Speak Your Peace” was a fairly serious affair compared to the band’s previous output, and it was an entirely different direction serving an approach which was quite strange for most ears at the time, but later proved mandatory for a lot of 90’s industrial and post-thrash outfits who built their style around those meandering clinical, sterile riff-patterns with a noisy abrasive edge. It was too visionary for anyone from the band to be interested in pursuing an elaboration on it any further, and this was the end of Cryptic Slaughter. Some of the guys were later seen helping some of their colleagues from the thrash/crossover sector, like Wehrmacht and Spazztic Blurr, and an all-cover version EP (“Band in S.M.”, featuring covers of Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Gang Green, Rolling Stones (!), etc.) which appeared in 2003 was perhaps a sign that they were planning a comeback. Alas, it was followed by a compilation epitaph (“Life in Grave”) whole 10 years later and an announcement that the band had split for good again...

Nevermind, the words of peace were spread back in 1990 and they still ring in the fans’ ears. Rest assured that in times of impending war the band will be back in business to spread another peaceful message, and to keep their messengers (the white doves, that is) from being “slaughtered”.

As was the case with most crossover bands, Cryptic Slaughter felt pressured to pick one scene or the other, therefore diluting their sound with thrash metal cliches. Speak Your Peace is way more controlled and less psychotic than Convicted or Money Talks. I can still get into it, but these guys were way better suited playing insane technical thrash... not mid-paced thrash.

There are a few awesome riffs... the intro to Still Born Again and Co Exist in particular. Lifestyles of the Poor and Lowly is pretty funny, and brings back some of the hardcore edge... more often than not, however, the album seems plagued by plodding, discordant, slow riffs and boring mid-thrash parts. The production is refined... something that would suit a different band well does not work at all for CS. These guys need a muddy, noisy, extreme sound.

I guess fans of Cryptic Slaughter (all 3 of ya) dig on this, but I'll take Dealing With It or Convicted any fuckin day.