Hypocrisy has become my favorate band over the course of a year and a half. I heard Roswell 47 playing in a local cd store from the Destroys wacken cd and i bought it that same visit. This was my initial exposure to Mr. Tagtgren's world of pure briliance. The live cd is a ture classic in live recordings and a killer set. I then highly anticipated their new cd that came out last summer, The s/t album. The S/T cd had become one of my top 5 favorate metal cd's of all time. The variation of material and the mix of melody/brutality and dark material is some of the best put onto disc in my opinion. I still listen to the cd all the time, especially when im in a depressed mood. The cd practically has burn marks on it LOL!!! Well, I found out that Hypocrisy was putting out a new cd this summer that what i heard was "return to the basics" or "good old death metal" ala their first 3 cd's. I was somewhat turned off by this report and figured i would give the cd my own judgement. I got the cd and started to listen to it with the reports said about it. Well, the reports are somewhat true, but not totally.

The cd starts off with 2 songs of brutality(legions descend and Blinded) that reflect alot of the material from the Fourth dimension cd. The third song is more melodic and uses semi clean vocals. the fourth song, Unleash the Beast, is total crap in my opinion. It sounds like Hypocrisy trying to do real fast punk or something!! I was totally turned off by this song. It was the 6th song that caught my attention(fire in the sky). This song could have been off the self titled cd-same goes with Unfold the sorrow. The songs are more mid paced with some great hooks for death metal is concerned. the 9th song, Sodomized, well, the title tells the story-FUCKING DEATH!! This is probably the best brutal/fast song on the cd followed by the best slower song on the cd, Deathrow(no regreats). Again, the last track could have ended up on the self titled cd also.

All in all, a somewhat return to their basics, but with some of the more modern sounding songs thrown in. This cd is not as diverse as the self titled, but is damn good. From what I have Read, Lars(drummer) doesn't like the self titled cd because its not brutal enough. Well Lars, the material on the self titled was pure genius IMO. I think that the band should as Peter says "follow their hearts", but continue on the path that the self titled cd was going, not regress back to something they have already done. I know that Hypocrisy's brand of Brutal death rules, but they have already done it on their first 3 cds. Overall, a good cd, but definately not their best.

This review is credited to:
Eric Dust