Artist: Hypnosis
Title: The Synthetic Light of Hope
Type: Album
Label: Dark Balance Records

French Cyber-Death-Metal anyone? Yeah I know, that was my reaction when I first read the promo info to this CD. Since forming in 1993, the four-piece have been releasing albums since 1999, this year see the band releasing ‘The Synthetic Light of Hope’, their 5th full length. Although this came out some time back on a different label, a more distributed release comes from Dark Balance records.

So, cyber-death, it’s an interesting concept, at least it’s not the standard mechanised guitar riffs and electronic wizardry thrown into the mix. The only experience I have of this is some Fear Factory, Ministry or even Rammstein. Hypnosis works well, guttural polish sounding death metal similar to that of Decapitated, some Vader and a lot of Behemoth 6 to 8 or so years ago. The male death vocals are low and heavy, and as a pure death metal album, it’s not bad, nothing that would stand out from the crowd, but proficient and entertaining. The bleeps and squeaks, as I like to call the electronic pieces, that are added are quite subtle and work well. There is definitely more emphasis on the metal than the electronic. The only snag is, the female vocals that come in during the electronic-type parts and are overdubbed during some proper death metal parts, these are wailing and damn annoying, especially on ‘An Ordinary Day’ and simply ruins a cool tune. I found the female vocal also annoying most of the way through the album. There is an almost progressive start to ‘My Deepest Solitude’, during the centre section you would just crave for an industrial drumbeat, you just would, and instead it stays death metal and true (ruined by female warbling again!). Thankfully Greg’s vocals power ahead and give the track much more aggressive tendencies. This seems to be the issue with the album for me, whilst I commend the other “influences”, I feel each track is about 80% great, the 20% lacking is attributed to taking the aggression and heaviness out of the tracks with some wimpy vocal tragedies.

There are plenty of double kick drums and guitar riffs for all you death metal folks, I would imagine the purist would stay clear, but I would recommend at least a listen. Only if you can edit out the female wailing vocals, you could enjoy it immensely. In summary, out of the box ideas in death metal with a bit of entertaining additions, it may not be to everyone’s taste, but I have found I enjoyed it but I am just not hooked or 100% convinced.

http://www.myspace.com/hypnosismetalt
http://www.darkbalance.com

Paul Maddison

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