Vs.

"[I'm] very disappointed to see how closed-minded some of our fans are. We started extreme metal and now we are doing it even more then before, extreme dynamically. When you listen to the full album, you will understand or not. Never has CRYPTOPSY been soo fast and agressive and at the same time generated feel in metal songs, wow. Not an achievement to you, it seems, but something extremely hard to do. If you get it or not, that's up to you, but people judge fast and I can guarantee that if you open your mind a little, you'll understand and be in awe. No change, then just vote for Bush again while you're at it. You know, [I'm] not an angry person by nature, but god, open your ears."

-Flo Mounier

Flo Mounier,
it is no small stroke of good fortune that you happen to have found your calling as a drummer, because as a logician or a debater, you are an abject failure. Perhaps there are high school playgrounds, back alleys or political rallies where your brand of fallacious counterpoint is considered legitimate, but we will not be cowed by your indignation or persuaded by your knee-jerk accusations of intolerance.

Facts are pernicious things, never yielding to desire or popular opinion, no matter how widely held they might be to be true. And what could be more popular; at least among washed-up, myopic, uninspired and emotionally fragile musicians past their prime; than that most flaccid and pitiful of canards, that all-purpose excuse of "experimentation"....

In case you've been living under a rock or in a cave this past decade, which I know you haven't been and are simply being dishonest, allow me to fill you in; STACCATO BURSTS OF PALM-MUTED NOTES OF THE EXACT SAME PITCH ACCOMPANIED BY BLAST BEATS AND HOWLING INFANT-LIKE VOCALS HAS BEEN DONE TO DEATH THESE PAST FIVE YEARS.

"Experimentation" refers to trying NEW things. What YOU are doing is hopping on a band wagon and then pretending to be Colonel Klink when these ugly facts are raised to you, and all you can offer by way of defense to your loyal and patient fans is a supercilious, selfish rant about "close-mindedness". Absurd. Contemptible. Pathetic. I'm wracked with disgust, not only that you could release such nakedly derivative, mainstream putris and try to defend it as novel and inventive in the face of overwhelming evidence, but that you could then carry on to lash out in petulant indignation at your justly offended fanbase.

What would it take, sir, to entreat you to merely CONSIDER the possibility that you have stumbled and taken this band in a humiliating direction that shames it's reputation? Are you so far beyond reproach in your own mind that the very notion of finding yourself in error brings out the most dishonest and unflattering in you?

Your fans are not fickle people, Mr. Mounier. They have not come and gone with the trends, they have sought out venues and vendors well out of their way, beyond the reach of the mainstream. If they aren't geniuses, then they are not sheep either. They have the savvy to tell when they're hearing something new, and when they're simply hearing a new trend dressed up in hype.

They listened to the music and they heard the very trend-driven tripe they have been weathering for half a decade and had hoped to find refuge from in your canon, and YOU failed to reciprocate their support. Bands running aground and turning to the bandwagons of the day are nothing new, but then you lashed out at them and called them all obtuse for not heralding what you'd done as a work of high art without a second thought. It's one thing to exhibit skepticism about your criticisms, it's quite another to suggest your work is flawless and all of your critics are by default unthinking and backwards without even addressing their concerns.

- Joesph W

(((03))) (photo by frodo47)