Catch 22

The mainstream explosion of the alt-metal/nu-metal/metalcore scene in the US during the late 1990s / early 2000s made waves on the other side of the Big Pond – and especially in Sweden, among death metal bands that had – in turn – provided more than a few sonic hints for the development of the new American heavy metal scene. In Flames are often cited as an example of Swedish death metal act who caught a fancy for the new brand of American metal (and got bashed for it), but surely Hypocrisy must have heard the very same siren’s call when they wrote the songs for their eighth LP, Catch 22. Do they deserve a similar bashing too?

Well, for sure you won’t find many people calling Catch 22 a resounding success, plagued as it is by weak songwriting, inconsistent musical direction and subpar production. Hypocrisy themselves must have been well aware of these problems when they decided to re-release the album six years later remastered and with re-recorded vocals. Although the 2008 version fixes some of the most glaring issues, the album’s core problems lie deep in its songwriting and cannot be fixed by simple cosmetics.

There are two major issues, in my view. First, the album feels utterly incoherent - almost as if Hypocrisy weren’t quite sure whether or not to answer that American siren’s call, after all. Some songs almost completely give in, embracing a whirlwind of simple repetitive riffs, barebone rhythmic grooves, and punkish vocals (sometimes guttural, sometimes semi-clean and whiny) that do nothing to conceal the band’s new influences (“Don't Judge Me”, “Destroyed”, “Turn the Page”). However, the album also includes a bunch of songs that take us straight back to the “classic” Hypocrisy sound – dark, gothic-infused death metal that can be both epic and melancholic at the same time (“On the Edge of Madness” – the best song here, “Uncontrolled”, “All Turns Black”). The contrast is jarring to the point one may feel these are tracks taken from different periods in the band’s discography. In a couple of cases (“Hatred”, “Another Dead End (for Another Dead Man)”), Hypocrisy try and merge the two aspects of their sound together with mixed results, but then elsewhere they also wander in even less comprehensible directions (the doom-meets- Motörhead vibes of “Seeds of the Chosen One”).

Lack of direction is almost always a death sentence in my book, but here things are possibly made worse by a rough-and-ready songwriting approach that makes me wonder whether Tägtgren, Hedlund and Szöke were actually fully invested in the writing of this album. Some tracks, in particular, feel almost improvised – as if the band wrote them straight in the recording studio, without giving too much thought to the final product (“A Public Puppet”, “All Turns Black”). The stripped-down arrangements and raw production contribute in giving the album a primitive feel that could be described as either “live-like” or “demo-like”, depending on how benevolent you may want to be.

Going back to the opening paragraph, I won’t lie and confess that I have never been a fan of the blending of metalcore/alt-metal influences into the classic death metal sound. As such, I largely lost touch with one of my old-time favorite bands, In Flames, after their alt-metal/metalcore-infused 2002’s album, Reroute to Remain. Yet even that album stands out as a massive accomplishment compared to the messy state of Hypocrisy’s Catch 22. The fact that Hypocrisy will quickly retrace their steps on subsequent records (while In Flames won’t) confirms that this is perhaps best seen as a slip of the mind that Hypocrisy can be forgiven for, given the otherwise high quality of most of their remaining discography.

After what was on "Catch 22" I have no doubts completely. "Into The Abyss" - despite the fact that it kept a high level - is a disc that serves only as a "touch-off" for those who at the early 00's considered Hypocrisy to be an increasingly weaker and softening band - and they were mostly right about it. With the release of "Catch 22", the Swedes went so far back into melo-death regions that it was strange that the fans of their cds before "Into..." did not attempt to crucify the authors. Well, by this release, Tägtgren and the rest of the band decided to expand their melo-death style with influences from such genres as groove, industrial or...even nu metal.

As you can easily guess, all of these novelties resulted in a totally incoherent and meaningless album. It lacks sophisticated melodies, riffs too often drift into newly-fashionable areas, the atmosphere is not too thrilling, and what the band put the most into...it has nothing to do with the style of Hypocrisy. Well, even the greatest fans of Swedish discography will have a problem with assimilating this material! And don't get me wrong, all this criticism is by no means a result of the complexity of the material or some kind of desire to break out of patterns. Unfortunately, on the contrary - from simplicity and too many clichés.

There aren't many highlights on this album, maybe "Don't Judge Me" (deceptively good to start an album), "Another Dead End (For Another Dead Man)" (something like "The Final Chapter") or "All Turns Black" (this one is extremely light, but successful). Well, it's difficult to say anything good about the others, except that they tire and seem to be going nowhere. Perhaps they will be good for those who are looking for something in the atmosphere of Rammstein ("On The Edge Of Madness", "Uncontrolled"), Korn ("Turn The Page") or even what Peter did in his Pain ("Hatred", "Public Puppet"), but also here I do not guarantee, considering how stylistically distorted this material is.

To make matters worse, there is also the production aspect, something that already scares you away from the first seconds of the album and definitely made the worst impression. You can hear that "Catch 22" just wasn't paid too much attention in this respect. The guitars lack power and the drums rumble like from a grindcore demo. In this case, a plastic production from "Abducted" would be much better.

So it's hard to clearly define who this "Catch 22" will actually appeal to. Occasional metal listeners may be pleased with the melodiousness of the material, but they will not like production, while fans of the previous releases will totally screw it up. On the other hand, it's not weird. Too many things are missing on "Catch 22".

Originally on: https://subiektywnymetal.blogspot.com/2020/07/hypocrisy-catch-22-2002.html

I fucking hate trash can snares. Their tinny bonks are screeches that pierce my ears and sap the music around it into a void of atonality. I can only think of a handful of albums that are subject to these derailing tocks that I do like, but that's because the music leading it is of supreme quality. Catch-22 is not one of these albums. Not even close, but the album is definitely Hypocrisy's weakest album.

By in large, Hypocrisy's spacey atmosphere, trancelike leads, and sardonic riffs are present. However, so is this banal modern In Flames / groove tenor that morphs Catch-22 into self-parody. It's a strange case of a band using other bands' formulas to imitate themselves while stopping just short of making a mockery. To namedrop the other band, there are some Slipknot influences in here (coincidentally at the worst moments). There's that and the perfunctory, factory-direct plodding of Reroute To Remain In Flames. It's a combination that Hypocrisy somehow attempted to keep from failing miserably. Compositionally, these songs aren't completely gutter-level rubbish. They aren't fantastic or equally dreadful (bar a song or two on both ends), either, but a batch of songs this middling and flogged by muddy production does suck.

Take "Don't Judge Me" and "Turn The Page" as two examples of rap-rock esque leads, slapstick bass, and tock-as-fuck snares all competing to grate. It reminds me a lot of Sepultura during this era: bitter, mucky, and boring by the very definition. Riffs are thrown without any coherency and vocals are spat with automated dryness. A step up from these two is most of the rest, which is just meandering riffs fleeced with that Abyss Studio bite. A very digitized and compressed sound is achieved this way, piling together this grubby collage of spastic aggression. The core is Hypocrisy, but everything else points to an artificial clone of one.

At this album's very best creativity is something that's very similar to the album following this one, The Arrival. Something like "Uncontrolled" and its steady tempo, dynamic leads, and rigid riffs. "On The Edge Of Madness" is another example as it strives for cryptic atmosphere and ghostly vocals - traits of Tägtgren's gloomy singing (I try not to remember what he's singing because these lyrics are shit). Instead, it ends up sounding like ex-Norther screamer Petri Lindroos and his frail exhales, but the song is decent. "Seeds Of The Chosen One" and "All Turns Black" mark a greater use of cleans that bask in leisure with compatible rhythms as it yearns for catchiness. Something along these lines, with the proper production and writing, could propel these two to The Arrival-level, which is essentially what these songs are (just inferior, bastardized forms). That kind of melody and direction is what The Arrival capitalizes on, but this album loses itself to its own half-assery.

The songs typify poor flow, and as such the album loses cohesion. The Arrival fixes most of these problems and as a result it became a memorable (albeit unoriginal) album. Most of the problems stem from poor production, but the songwriting itself prohibits this from being on the same level as every other Hypocrisy release. The only advice is to hear the re-recorded version of Catch-22. The re-recording doesn't rewrite history, but it makes this album listenable at best - the way it should have been.

Hypocrisy is easily one of the best extreme metal bands in the world right now, its founder/main songwriter/vocalist/guitar and keyboard player Peter Tägtgren being on of the most talented individuals in the metal scene today. Most Hypocrisy albums are almost unanimously considered excellent, if one was to judge by reviews present both on Metal-Archives and on other websites, but Catch 22 (and, to a considerably lesser extent, The Arrival) is considered by many to be a mediocre-at-best album and certainly the band’s weakest. While Catch 22 is the band’s worst album, it’s still a good and quite underrated effort.

Catch 22 suffers from the same major flaw which brings In Flames’ widely despised yet underrated seventh album, Soundtrack To Your Escape, down: the opening track, Don’t Judge Me, like F(r)iend for In Flames’ album, is the worst track on the album. The vocals are just decent but, when coupled with some generic riffs and especially that horrible trashcan drumming (new Metallica, anyone?) really turns this into one of Hypocrisy’s saddest moments, right there with their cover of Kiss’ Strange Ways, which isn’t as bad since it’s a lame song by an even lamer band, but this abortion of a song called Don’t Judge Me is completely Hypocrisy’s fault. This is probably the only song which reminds me of the oft-mentioned Shitknot…I’m sorry, Slipknot, influence this album seems to have.

The rest of the album is fortunately much stronger. The second track is Destroyed, which is an incredible Hypocrisy song, right up there with their best compositions. It’s quite fast-paced, and in this respect it resembles Don’t Judge Me but is much better. It’s also one of the songs which got me into metal and the first extreme metal song I liked, so I must admit that I have a certain bias while reviewing it. On The Edge Of Madness is a slower, more melodic piece, featuring a very catchy chorus, in line with many melodic death metal songs. Once again Peter Tägtgren manages to deliver an excellent vocal performance as well as a strong series of riffs. Most subsequent songs follow this example of having catchy choruses and solid instrumental work to support them, although there are some remaining weak tracks, notably A Public Puppet and, to a lesser extent, Uncontrolled. Turn The Page and Another Dead End (For Another Dead Man) are the undeniable highlights of the latter half of the album. Most Hypocrisy albums also contain a slower, near-ballad type song. Catch 22’s slow song is All Turns Black, a depressive song featuring Peter’s clean vocals and lyrics which deal with deep psychological problems, as they do on the rest of the album.

Catch 22 is an overall good album, although it has some obvious flaws which drag it down to being the band’s worst effort. These flaws, however, are just a few songs which can be easily skipped, allowing the excellent ones to be appreciated again and again. I recommend this album to all Hypocrisy and melodic death metal fans: don’t be scared by the high number of negative reviews here. Catch 22 is a good album, but I suggest getting something else to those who aren’t familiar with the band: probably Abducted, the s/t or Virus.

Hypocrisy’s Catch-22 is a good metal album. It is neither pop nor nu-metal. Two songs sound like Slipknot, but the rest of the album is less derivative. (And what’s the deal with the Slipknot bashing? Admittedly, their debut album was nu-metal bullshit, but Vol. 3 and parts of Iowa were great). Back to Catch-22. It’s a varied album. It does contain some death metal, but it isn’t as heavy or extreme as other Hypocrisy albums. It is obvious that Hypocrisy was attempting a more commercial sound with Catch-22, but by doing so they ran the risk of alienating their fan base. The problem with this album is that it is too heavy to appeal to a wider (less metal-oriented) audience but it is too light to satisfy long-time fans.

Maybe it’s because I only recently discovered Hypocrisy, but I don’t dislike this album at all. In fact, I appreciate that it sounds different than their other releases because it provides a glimpse into Hypocrisy’s versatility. Also, I think that Catch-22 is filled with good songs. Some have slow tempos and vocals that border on cleanliness, but they are successfully mixed in with faster and heavier sounds. Honestly people, what’s not to like here? Close-minded death metal devotees should beware, but everyone else can enjoy Catch-22 for its satisfying diversity and successful incorporation of light and shade. It may not be a typical Hypocrisy release, but it remains original. It doesn’t sound like anything else out there.

Apparently this is Hypocrisy's most hated album... I have actually never heard anyone say anything really negative about this album until I saw the reviews here on metal-archives! Before we consign Hypocrisy to the flames, I've been listening to this album since it came out and I think there is more to it than the previous reviews are saying.

"Catch 22" sounds much like "The Arrival" (a much more popular album) but way more attitude and an excellent bass heavy roar sound to it. Some really well composed riffs, like the beginning of "Public Puppet" and "Hatred,"and basically the whole song "Turn the Page." Riff transitions keep the music flowing very well. Drums do nothing too fancy here - rhythms and fills are good and fit very well into the songs, also effectively keeping up the flow.

Having said that, Hypocrisy could definitely use some more brutality here - brutality that has partially shown up on the 2005 album:"Virus." Just now as I went to check what year "Virus" came out in I saw that a new 2008 re-recording of this album (Catch22) is coming out. It looks like that brutality problem I mentioned is about to be solved, or at least as far as the music goes... I think the lyrics could use a bit more brutality too. Instead of one of the most intense songs on the album being "Don't Judge Me" and hearing lines like "I'm sick and tired of people telling me what to be..." we could surely ask for something less tame, but nothing like that is going to change on a re-release. Still, I'm willing to bet this re-release coming out in '08 is going to be as good or better as this original, much underrated version of the album!

It's pretty hit-or-miss with Hypocrisy - some of their stuff is absolutely brilliant, some is downright bland. Fortunately, their catalogue tends to be more heavy on the hit side than the miss, but this one is, unfortunately, a pretty bad miss.

I really don't know why they did this - it really sounds like they were trying to appeal to the mallcore crowd (forgive the overused term) without losing touch with their own sound. It's even more confusing when you consider the fact that two albums later they were back in form. I can only assume this was just an experiment, and I'm glad they realized that it didn't really work.

It's not really bad - apparently the band was influenced by Slipknot on this one, but trust me, it's a million times better than Slipknot - no, the trouble with this album is that it never really takes off. The songs are heavy, but it's generally in a pounding, power-chord driven sort of way. There's nothing that will tear your face off, which is what I look for in a Hypocrisy album. The songs are catchy, as well, but hell, so is Green Day. The riffs don't really go anywhere, and when there's melody it comes from the vocals which, whatever else has happened to Hypocrisy's sound, remain pretty good. I just wish Peter could think of something better to shriek than "don't judge me."

Bottom line: it's not unlistenable, but it's not very good either. Hypocrisy is capable of so much better - just get Abducted, Into The Abyss, or even their newest, Virus to see what I mean. I'd only recommend this album to someone who wants to complete their Hypocrisy collection - for everyone else, just download "Turn the Page" and get one of the aforementioned albums.

I don’t understand why people give this CD so much crap. It’s a fairly good record. Sure, its not the usual melodic death style that Hypocrisy has pioneered for the last decade or so, but it’s still interesting. The music is a definite downgrade from all other releases, but that’s because Peter Tägtren wanted to make a record for the soul purpose of letting off over piled anger in almost senseless ‘Slipknot meets new In Flames’ style ferocity. It is NOT a nu-metal album, it is NOT a mallcore/ ‘compromise to mainstream’ album, and it is NOT a crappy record. Being someone of a wide variety of music across the metal and rock spectrum, I can easily say this over other people.

Musically, the guitars and bass have a more distorted hard rock/ thrash feel to them, which sounds rather good when compared to bands like Slipknot who did the same thing. The vocals are well executed, although Peter Tägtren tried some more clean singing with some processor effects that sound kinda electronic. The song writing is a step down from the semi-progressive style of the band’s normal musical pieces, and the lyrics are downright crappy, pissed-off, senseless lyrics that again could remind one of Slipknot.

As a whole, one of this album’s biggest down falls is it’s poor flow and lack of strong atmospheres. On a higher note, a lot of the songs are insanely catchy and perfect to headbang too in a mosh pit somewhere. Probably the biggest standout tracks are ‘Turn the Page’, a thrashy death-fest of catchy guitar riffs, violent vocals, and intense energy, and ‘Edge Of Madness’, a mid-paced keyboard based track with a catchy chorus line, melodic atmosphere, and overall good song writing.

Sure, it’s not what anyone would call a ‘great’ album, some may not even call it a ‘good’ album, I just like to call it a ‘Slipknot album only better cause it’s made by an awesome death metal band’ album. Best recommended you buy either the band’s self-titled, The Final Chapter, or Virus before you even begin to consider picking this album up.