Mr Tägtgren, I can take your Pain or leave it but I do like your Hypocrisy. Solid and dependable are two words that totally sum up the Swedish death metal institution and they have been delivering great albums since 1992 when ‘Penetralia’ literally kicked butt. It has been way too long since we got a proper follow up to 2004 release ‘Virus’ although a re-jigged and re-recorded ‘Catch 22’ kept some fans placated and the more easily pleased had a couple of Pain albums and rereleases of their old material to keep them happy. This was the one that I was waiting for though and even on first play I was very much aware that this was going to be another solid and dependable release. Mind you further plays had me acknowledging the fact that it was better than even that and if anything with the godlike hooks and killer melodies it even lives up to its name and indeed gives a taste of extreme divinity.
As yet I have not quite decided which track on the album is the best although the first three stick out as all being particularly fantastic. I think it is going to be opener ‘Valley Of The Damned’ that I finally plump for though. It is so damn heavy that it practically blows you down, in fact it is on a par with the stuff Mr T did in his stint with Bloodbath. Then the riffs come in and like wow, the air guitar is forced out and strummed with wild abandon as the melody overrides. Yet it is not done at the expense of the extremity and this is constantly apparent throughout the album, indeed one would be hard pushed giving this the ‘melodeath’ tag it’s far too damn brutal. The song breaks down to allow the guitar parts to shine down but there is no silencing that man behind the frosty kit, Horgh is very much on form here pummelling away with the power to cause an avalanche and bury all in its path. A couple of samples are used on the album and work well (certainly in keeping me guessing as I cannot put my finger on them). One starts ‘Hang Him High’ and it then literally charges into town with riffs (did I tell you about the riffs) flailing and scaling into giddy peaks around Peter Tägtgren’s mighty vocal roar. I’m not sure if it’s because of the title but ‘Solar Empire’ reminds a bit of Samael at their modern best, fast, furious and with a catchy chorus guaranteed to burn your hands and singe your eyebrows off.
Although this first trio of songs are great that doesn’t mean that the rest are not on a par. Number four is called ‘Weed Out The Weak’ and is hardly limp-wristed in the slightest. It does strike that it has some real classic sounding Swedish guitar signatures about it and still belts along at an alarming pace. Things do go a bit more mid-paced in the middle section of the album with the brooding likes of ‘Global Domination’ dropping a heavy payload as it swaggers away but the rabid title track is the explosion wiping out everything around in a solid blast of carnage with guitar shards killing off any survivors as it cuts them down like shrapnel. ‘The Quest’ is one of those slower more grandiose numbers that the group are so adept at, but it still retains a mighty heavy vibe about it and the production here as you would expect is really beefy.
I was going to say this was an essential release that you simply had to get but looking on the bands site I see that recently announced tour dates do not include the UK as yet, so… Well I suppose you should really consider this at least, seriously it’s a fucking belter!
http://www.hypocrisy.tv
http://www.myspace.com/hypocrisy
