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On disc: Hypocrisy



- Abductred - Volker Raabe - 7 stars
- The Arrival - Claudia Ehrhardt - 8 stars
- Virus - Claudia Ehrhardt - 8 stars


www.hypocrisy.tv







Virus

Virus
(Nuclear Blast - 2005)


After a short intro Hypocrisy come over you with Warpath! A fast double-bass drum attck and killing guitar riffs. No mercy, they are on a warpath! Peter Tägtgren and his mates - including their new drummer Horgh - presenting typical Hyprocrisy death metal. A guitar riff-driven song is Scrutinized. Tägtgren managed again to write brutal tune with some kind of catchiness. So it Scrutinized almost an earcatcher... Screaming guitars, a twisted solo and razor-sharp riffs are dominating the song. The following Fearless has some more melodic touch... Epic touch, but is still heavy. A death metal hymn with some keyboard line in the background. With Carving For Another Killing a mean, fast, brutal neckbreaker is following. It's not just an ultra-fast one, there are breaks and tempi changes. But still so far the heaviest track. A heavy, grooving rocker is Let The Knife Do The Talking. A bit doomy. Even a bit threatening. With A Thousand Lies they stay in the mid-tempo death metal genre. Melodic guitars are the counterpart to the mean vocals of Peter Tägtgren. Blooddrench is a real neckbreaker. In a way the splitted the album in 3 parts... First the fast, brutal up-tempo death metal one, then the more mid-tempo threatening ones and then back to the fast ones, even if as usual the last track Living To Die is less fast and heavy... A kind of epic ballad... With a modern touch... A bit Pain... Catchy. A song most metal fans wouldn't expect from a band like Hypocrisy. Here even the vocals are less brutal... Clean vocals. A good track to end the album, to slowly finish it... Like a virus which is slowly killing, but still deadly!
Again Peter Tägtgren managed to record an album which is interesting for fans from the early days as much as for fans of the late Hypocrisy. Virus is infectous. Perhaps not a masterpiece and some fans will disagree, but a more then decent album which lives from it's diversity. It's dark.... Gloomy. And the dark atmosphere fits well to Virus.


8 stars

Claudia Ehrhardt
 

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The Arrival

The Arrival
(Nuclear Blast - 2004)


For some reason I just got to listen to Hypocrisy with their latest release The Arrival. And so I can't compare this with their earlier work, coz I just know a few tracks. Opening with Born Dead Buried Alive mastermind Tägtgren shows that he's still alive and can play death metal. This album - as I got told - is building a musical bridge between their old albums and their more modern ones like Catch 22. Heavy guitar riffing and bashing drums combined with death metal growls and some mean semi-clean vocals. The following track Eraser is more mid-tempo. Heavy and anthem-like with an epic touch. The groove will make this soon a classic when they play live. Lyrically Peter continues to write about aliens... He seems to be kinda possessed by this topic. And so the title The Arrival fits to the lyrical concept... The arrival of some aliens as he can imagine it. With Stillborn Hypocrisy are speed up a bit, changing tempo and mixing different elements - the initial guitar riff has some Nu metal influence - makes this one a good choice to get an idea about The Arrival. But it's still heavy, guitar driven and mid-tempo death metal. New World is a track more in the tradition of Swedish death metal, even if it ain't ultra-fast. Hammering drums, staccato guitar riffing and deep growls. A song which fans of their early days will love - I suppose, even if their are using breaks... At The Abyss a mighty dark chorus is adding some atmospheric, epic sound to the gloomy sound and the screaming guitars. One of the highlights in my opinion... Next a faster track - Dead Sky Dawning - which is based on guitar-riffing and hammering drums. Tägtgren's vocals sound sick and mean, but during the refrain he adds some melody and so this becomes almost catchy... If you can use the term 'catchy' while talking about death metal... A real headbanger. Too experimental for old school fans. But the best song of The Arrival in my opinion.
Seems like Tägtgren has managed the walk on the razors edge and now the fans will have to decide, if this is what they want to hear from Hypocrisy. Sure, there always will be fans complaining about the changes in the music of their favorite band... But if everything would stay the same, it would become boring after awhile... Wouldn't it? So, listen and make up your mind.


8 stars

Claudia Ehrhardt
 

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Abductred

Abductred
(Nuclear Blast - 1996)


Raw and heavy death metal is what the Swedish Hypocrisy offer. With the album The Fourth Dimension they started this way and on the third release of the trio the consequently follow the chosem path. Abducted was recorded in Peter Tägtgren's own studio, the famous Abyss Studio and is really heavy and has hyperfast parts. This is like a nuclear blast!


7 stars

Volker Raabe
(translation: Claudia Ehrhardt)
 

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           ©2008-2010 by Claudia Ehrhardt • E-Mail: contact@ice-vajal.com


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