Billy Strings’ Favorite Metal Band Is Coming to Denver

There are no off days for Cryptopsy.

The Canadian death-metal band is on a night off just outside of Baltimore when Westword rings, but instead of indulging in the local fare of soft-shell crab and Natty Boh, there is work to be done.

“We’re going to start writing some more today,” says vocalist Matt McGachy. “We like to keep these days productive.”

It’s an admirable sentiment, a surprisingly militant approach, especially for a band as legendary as Cryptopsy. The Montreal group is widely credited and praised for writing the book on modern technical death metal during the 1990s, particularly its first two albums — Blasphemy Made Flesh (1994) and None So Vile (1996) — which unleashed a level of proficiency and complexity previously unseen in such extreme music at that time. “Graves of the Fathers,” “Slit Your Guts,” “Open Face Surgery,” “Pathological Frolic,” the list goes on, are all classics.

“None So Vile is an iconic, legendary death metal record that many, many people have been influenced by,” says McGachy, who joined Cryptopsy in 2007. “I can say that because I wasn’t on it.”

There’s a reason why Billy Strings, whose early days were rooted in metal while cutting his teeth in Michigan, calls it his favorite death metal album of all-time, as the current face of newgrass has publicly expressed his love for Cryptopsy, including wearing a None So Vile tee in interviews, a shirt he bought directly from the band when the two happened to be playing Boise on the same night in October 2023. Strings couldn’t make it, as he was busy performing to a sold-out arena, but he made sure to send a delegate to the Cryptopsy gig.

“This person comes out saying, ‘Oh, I’m with Billy Strings,’” McGachy recalls. “They bought all our merch. They presented us with a cake that said, ‘Open Strings Surgery,’ instead of ‘Open Face Surgery.’ We sent him a video of us saying thank you and he sent us back a video from his show that night.

“He spoke to the whole arena about how his favorite death-metal band was playing over there but he couldn’t be there because he was here with them,” he continues, “and then he finishes his set with ‘Graves of the Fathers’ and he goes down into the crowd and headbangs like a mad man while his fans are walking out.”

That eventually led to Strings contributing a solo to the recent “Blasphemy Made Fresh” medley, which celebrated the record’s thirtieth anniversary. Strings’s guitar work can be heard in the “Open Face Surgery” section.

“I was thinking about having a guest soloist on that,” McGachy explains. “I said, ‘Hey, let’s just try. Let’s just ask Billy Strings and see what he says.’ And he said, ‘Yes,’ and it was so easy.”

It all happened over email, so Strings and Cryptopsy still haven’t had the chance to meet in person. But can you imagine a co-headline bill with those two?

“I would say yes to that,” McGachy quips.

After the Strings plug and winning a Juno Award, the Canadian equivalent of a Grammy, for the 2023 album, As Gomorrah Burns, Cryptopsy is finally getting its flowers, at least in a more mainstream sense. But McGachy, longtime drummer Flo Mounier, guitarist Christian Donaldson and bassist Olivier Pinard aren’t ones to rest on their laurels. Instead, the Canadian quartet unleashed An Insatiable Violence, via Season of Mist, in June, and it might just be the heaviest offering Cryptopsy has whipped up with such songs as “Dead Eyes Replete,” “Until There’s Nothing Left” and “Malicious Needs.” That’s saying something for a band that’s been around since 1988 and always forged its own path within underground metal.

Cryptopsy visits the Oriental Theater on Tuesday, October 7, with Nile, the Last Ten Seconds of Life and Cognitive.

Continuing to push the boundaries of a subgenre they helped shape is something McGachy and his bandmates don’t take lightly, and why there are still none so vile as Cryptopsy.

“We don’t want to pigeonhole or trap ourselves into sounding just like None So Vile. Cryptopsy never did that,” McGachy says. “They could have made None So Vile Part II and continued with all that hype they had back in ’96, but they didn’t do that. It’s more like, yes, we’re brutal. Yes, we’re intense, but we want people to feel like as if they’re not completely standing on their own two feet.

“It’s just a constant barrage of internal pressure within the band with trying to upkeep and honor everything that has happened in the band’s history, while still trying to remain relevant in a quickly advancing genre of extreme music,” he concludes. “The pressure and the stress of trying to create something relevant while still checking all the boxes of what makes Cryptopsy Cryptopsy is a lot of pressure. We’re never comfortable.”

Cryptopsy, with Nile, the Last Ten Seconds of Life and Cognitive, 6 p.m. Tuesday, October 7, the Oriental Theater, 4335 West 44th Ave. Tickets are $40.