- Greetings and thanks for agreeing to this interview. What’s the latest news regarding Cryptworm at the moment?
Thanks for the opportunity! Latest news regarding Cryptworm is probably our upcoming second album which is coming out at the end of this year. It will be announced in the upcoming weeks. I’m really curious about the response because of the new line up. I think people should like it if they are into Demilich or Carcass.
- Having formed in 2014, your first and self-titled demo was released in 2017. Was it just a sluggish start, or you didn’t rehearse intensely right from the get go?
We did rehearse religiously pretty much every week from October 2014 but we weren’t satisfied with the songs that we put together. We knew we wanted to play death metal but all of the songs were pretty much just soulless vessels. To be completely honest with you I feel the same way about the 3 songs on our demo as well. It’s just faceless. With “Verminosis” we finally had an idea which direction to go even though you can hear the clear difference between that EP and our recent recordings.
- I hear some Swedish death metal influences in that recording, as well as your first EP “Verminosis” that came a year later, particularly of bands like Grave. Was that an inspiration for you then?
I can understand why you mentioned Grave because it definitely has some Swedish sound to it but I would rather say bands like Incantation and Asphyx as a main influence during that time. On the other hand, the first two Grave albums and their demos before that are among my favourite death metal recordings.
- Moving further than that, I really liked the “Reeking Gunk of Abhorrence” EP from 2020, being close to the sound of Untergang, with some Demilich-inspired riffs and as deep growls as possible that brought Mortician to mind. How was your music received then when you still didn’t have a full album out yet?
“Reeking…” put us on the map of underground death metal. All our previous releases received significantly less feedback than this MLP so it was a pleasant surprise to us because we expected that people would listen to it only for 2 weeks after its release and then forget about it just like our other recordings. You couldn’t be more correct with Demilich, Mortician and Undergang as an influence and this hasn’t changed a bit to this day. Maybe I could add Cannibal Corpse and Carcass as influences recently.
- Who is the artist of your current logo? Great work and fully fits the essence of the band.
It’s probably easier if I go through our history with the logos from the start since we have a new one again which no one saw yet. Mark Riddick did our first logo which you can see on the demo and the “Verminosis” EP. Then Festering Phlegm did our second logo which we used until now. Our newest logo is done by Skadvaldur who did our debut album's artwork. I think it perfectly fits our music and less messy than the previous one. If you ask me Riddick’s logo looked cool but it didn’t fit our music once we changed our sound on the Archaic Tomb split. Festering Phlegm’s logo again, looks cool but it’s way too messy to put it on anything hence why it’s not on the front cover of our debut album. I feel like with this third one we finally hit the nail in the coffin. It’s the logo that I wanted from the start.
- You take on the more disgusting and vile side of death metal, pushing forward mere brutality and nothing else. What were the driving factors behind this, and if you were to imagine yourself on Sunday family dinner, why would you say a lot of fans find such material so appealing?
I think Joe’s bestial drumming style, my new vocal technique and the guitar tone are responsible to make our sound vile and disgusting. Musically we are doing the same since “Verminosis”, recently probably a bit more Demilich influenced riffs than before but the recipe is the same. I changed my vocal style because I couldn’t do as low death growls as Craig Pillard or Will Rahmer. With this other grunting technique which is used by bands like Demilich, Undergang or Anatomia I could go as guttural as possible which I wanted. I think on the second album I managed to push it even lower. Guitar tones also changed but that’s something that I keep changing on every release. The debut was a bit cleaner, now it’s gonna be between “Spewing…” and “Reeking…” but I assume on future releases I'm gonna change it again. It is just something I’m obsessed with. I’ll keep the “vile” factor though. Regarding why would the fans be appealed for this kind of music is I think that it’s the production. We don’t use metronomes, we leave all the mistakes in the recordings, we don’t do crazy post editing and mixing. It’s raw, which is rare in death metal. There are other bands who are pushing this to the next level like Mephitic Corpse or Septic Fumes just to mention a few.
- How did the short split with Archaic Tomb come around? Did you know the band members beforehand?
I knew Nuno beforehand through his label Caverna Abismal Records. He released a couple of my bands’ materials before I moved to the UK. He came up with the idea of a 7” split and of course we were up for it. I was also looking at that time for bands to do a split with so it was super convenient.
- Cryptworm’s debut full length “Spewing Mephitic Putridity”, showcased the aforementioned musical references clearly and was quite well-executed as an album. What has been the response to it, now that a year has passed since its release?
The response was very positive. A couple of guys missed the putrid sound of “Reeking…” but overall it was very well received. What’s crazy for me is that some bands are mentioning us as an influence or on a website when they post a new band as “for fans of Cryptworm”. I’m absolutely humbled by these comments. On the other hand we also managed to receive the “worst album of 2022” on one website which is quite an achievement really. I normally feel a bit bad after reading negative reviews but this one was funny to read.
- How long did it take for you to compose and record the album? Do ideas come out of jamming sessions or is it more of a sudden creative burst for you when composing new material?
I can’t exactly remember how much time it took to write the album but I know we had to postpone the recording process a couple of times because of covid lockdowns. If it weren’t for the pandemic this album would have come out a year earlier. The writing process is usually me coming up with riffs and song structure ideas. I record them with programmed drums then at the rehearsal we dissect them and include everyone else’s ideas. I like to write the songs by myself but changing bits and pieces during a jam is mandatory. At the end Cryptworm is not a solo project, I want to include all the other members' ideas as well. We are already working on the 3rd album and for the first time ever we split the writing of it with our bassist, Joss. Both of us wrote 4 songs each separately. We will change bits and pieces during the jam sessions of course.
- You participated in a compilation by Metal Defiance in 2022, which directed its profits to Ukraine as support for the recent ongoing conflicts there. Cryptworm isn’t a political project, yet do you consider it important to take a stance as an artist?
The girl who did the compilation is a friend of Joe’s and that’s why we participated in the compilation and let her use one of our songs from the self-titled demo. It was for a good cause so we agreed to it.
- We have had a new album by Coffinborn in 2023, nine years after the band’s first and only EP. Were you in Hungary or the UK for this album to be made, or both?
The reason why it took 9 years is the fact that I was here in the UK, the drummer in Germany and the bassist in Hungary. I put together and recorded the songs with programmed drums, and sent it to my bandmates. They made their suggestions, then all of us were practising them separately at home. I recorded my parts in the UK and the rest of the band theirs in Hungary. It’s quite a weird method for us but we made it work and we will carry on creating music this way.
- What other bands from the UK or elsewhere, would someone enjoy, if they are really into Cryptworm?
There is a strong death metal scene in the UK right now so I am just gonna drop a couple of names from the ones that people might enjoy if they like us. Vacuous, Coffin Mulch, Abyssal, Slimelord, Vacivus, Brainbath, Celestial Sanctuary, Cadaverity.
- Are you in the process of composing new material for the band, and are there any live shows planned in the near future?
Our second album is coming out in December but we started working on the third album already. We don’t plan to record an album every year but if we have the inspiration to write new songs and have the time for it then we will go for it until we get hopefully busy with doing gigs. Regarding future gigs, we have a couple planned but nothing crazy. The next one is going to be in November, in London at Beyond the Grave fest.
- Thanks for your time. The last comments are yours!
Thanks again for the interview! Support the underground!
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