Hypocrisy

Hypocrisy's fifth album The Last Chapter was supposed to be their last album - thus its name and a burned picture of the members on the album cover. But after all, two years later, Hypocrisy decided to continue and we should be glad for it as the next album would become their new peak. Experimental. Atmospheric. Different. Melodic death metal + thrash metal + grunge. Yes, grunge! And I mean it.

Right from the start when "Fractured Milllenium" starts you notice that Peter uses a fake choir sound to set the mood. As if this was a new Bathory, but easy, this is still Hypocrisy as Peter's shrieking and melodic harmonic guitars which are so typical for this band put your thoughts back on track. Basically the first three / four tracks are safely in an extreme metal area. Either it's melodic death metal like the already mentioned "Fractured Millenium" or more thrashy pieces (with death metal elements) like "Apocalyptic Hybrid" which contains almost Slayer-esque guitar solos.

I would say that with "Fusion Programmed Minds" the album breaks and changes. From this song up the album is less death and more melodic. Even Peter's style of singing starts to lose his typical growling. His singing is cleaner now, not as brutal as before, closer to groove metal than death metal. There are two exceptions, but I will mention them later. After the break you see a different Hypocrisy. Peter gets rid of the rawness and what he pushes for is now a melancholic atmosphere. It's moody, it's heavy... it's almost positive? I look at you "Reversed Reflections". What the heck is happening Peter? Are you out of your mind? Not at all, he is not. He knows what he is doing. He wants you to feel free, to feel freedom when flying through the cold space horizons. He does not want to crush you with riffs like a hammer anymore, he wants you to close your eyes and feel what he feels.

Is this the most atmospheric Hypocrisy album? Well, it depends, as personally I think all Hypocrisy albums have their specific atmosphere. Maybe if we specified it, the most dreamy Hypocrisy album, then I think this album would be a winner. However, their Abudcted has also its somewhat dreamy feel. A great example is "Until The End" which is a song perfectly fitting a rainy cloudy day. Take your hot tea (or a hot beer, if you want, brrr), sit on your windowsill and look at the horizon through the raindrops falling from dark grayish clouds above. What about the killer ending duo "Disconnected Magnetic Corridors" and "Paled Empty Sphere"? These songs are basically incarnated melancholy.

Now I would like to say a few words about the somehow controversial statement at the beginning - the grunge thing. Really, do not take me wrong, but I really hear grunge in most songs after the proclaimed break. When it comes to "Until The End" and its chorus, it's pure grunge. The chorus in "Paranormal Mysteria"? Grunge again! The already mentioned ending duo is so grungy that it could fit any Alice in the Chains album. I have no problem imagining Staley singing it. They are slow, they are haunting, they are thoughtful. They are my personal favorites. The songs with an unmatched mood, the most beautiful choruses and chord progressions Hypocrisy had (and have) ever done and a beautiful guitar work exploring Peter's tender heart. It's real. The album ends and your thoughts begin to analyze what you have listened as there is a lot to be analyzed here. A perfect ending.

Previously I was talking about two exceptions. Well, the thing is that it depends on which version of this album you listen to. If you listen to the original audio, then there is only one exception "Time Warp", however the Digipak version contains a bonus track called "Selfinflicted Overload", which makes the second exception. The reason why I call the exceptions is that they interrupt the slow and moody atmosphere with fast thrashy/groovy metal. Out of the two I definitely prefer "Time War". It is like a slap in the face. Peter slaps our faces to wake us up as the previous songs' atmosphere put us to sleep. It's not because they were boring, but because they were so melancholic and beautiful. Personally, I love it and in my opinioin it fits the album like the rest of the songs. "Selfinflicted Overload" is also a great song but after the perfect ending duo it feels like an unwanted add-on that does not contribute anything new to the album. However it is still a bonus track, not a track that belongs to the original official release.

I noticed a very interesting fact about this album. Songs' names are quite different from the actual lyrics. I do not know why but it's very efficient. Disconnected Magnetic Corridors? What is this song about?, you might ask yourself. Perhaps some physics? No, this song is actually about a man and an apocalyptic future he saw. Elastic Inverted Visions? Is this song about ophthalmology? No, wrong again. This song is about a torture of mankind (I suppose at least). Ain't this interesting? I think it is and that is why I love it.

I have basically nothing bad to say about this album, when it comes to the original release. Perhaps the cover of the album? What the hell is this supposed to mean? Two weirdly shaped cylinders and a random rock between them. I don't understand, Peter. Please, explain. When it comes to the digipak, I think "Selfinflicted Overload" is like a leftover. Not a bad track, I like it and I do not turn it off when it starts, but Hypocrisy's Hypocrisy should end with "Paled Empty Sphere". This is the perfect ending of basically a perfect album. My score reflects my feelings of the original audio record. When it comes to the Digipak, I would score it 91%.

I have heard opinions that the Hypocrisy selftitle album was their best and most epic. Maybe that's true, but...probably not including their pre-"The Final Chapter" discography! The fact is that "Hypocrisy" is one of the best melodic albums by Tägtgren's band, although not just brilliant or bringing a completely new quality, as you can read on the internet. "Abducted" did not suggest such conclusions, yet it presented a much higher level! In the discussed one, one may like the fact that the band managed to make their music much lighter (indeed, more than before), and at the same time that it did not fall into a melodic crap, definitively rejecting its death metal sound. Well, it's not much for them, but bearing in mind that a similar approach didn't work the previous time, "Hypocrisy" might be another reason to hurl abuse at the band.

It happened otherwise, and most of the defects from "The Final Chapter" were corrected, ie. they took care that the music is not sleepy and did not try to satisfy everyone. The three Swedes managed to record here a relatively pleasant and quite loose (but not death'n'roll) piece of metal music - such without trying to get something very bloated. The return to a slightly higher form is: primarily the collection of the best patents from the previous two albums (ie. Scandinavian atmosphere, melodies and some heaviness), and the appearance of a few new ones, not necessarily related to extreme playing (mainly those influencing greater "songiness"). The numerous keyboard additions (which can already be heard perfectly in the opening "Fractured Millennium"), a greater amount of clean singing (and sometimes squeaks that may be associated with Dani Filth's vocals) or generally calmer parts (e.g. "Elastic Inverted Visions", "Until The End" and "Paled Empty Sphere") make an exceptionally good impression here. Well, as you could read in my review of "The Final Chapter", similar elements last time clearly failed.

However, as I mentioned at the beginning, "Hypocrisy" is also nothing that significantly refreshes/summarizes the achievements of this group (but the title could suggest something like that). Going even further with it, the Hypocrisy selftitle longplay is just another step in softening the sounds by the Swedes and a continuation of well-known patents. On the other hand, this time, they found it quite convincing.

Originally on: https://subiektywnymetal.blogspot.com/2020/07/hypocrisy-hypocrisy-1999.html

Hypocrisy started out as a core member of the first wave of Swedish death metal, along with Entombed, Edge of Sanity or At the Gates and like these bands they quickly gravitated towards a more melodic style after just a few albums. By their third album ('The Fourth Dimension') they had transformed from an atonal pure death metal band into a band that produced a sound that is now more associated with Scandinavian death metal in general. That is one where melody is to be central.

On this self-titled record here, 'Hypocrisy', the band pick up from where they'd left off on the previous records and display their full-fledged melodic death metal sound. There are leads aplenty filling in the tracks left right and center the same way an Inflames would flesh out their tracks; there are quite a few of those similar linear harmonized melodic lines; however, much of the appeal for Hypocrisy's music is the backing choirs that produce a heavenly sort of atmosphere. The clean vocals, used alternatively as leads or as a backing track, also contribute to that sort of angelic and purified melodic feel, in particular some of the lows and the peculiar warmth they bring. A Hypocrisy signature, that's very rare in any metal. It's clear there's a plurality of influences on this record but the band's main objective is to establish a deep atmosphere, one between sorrow and dark uncertainty. The intro to the track 'Elastic Inverted Visions' could very well flat out be gothic rock for all the listener knows if not given any context for example. Otherwise the album can sometimes sound a bit like melodic rock (see 'Reversed Reflections' - no screaming the whole way), albeit with a heavier guitar sound. 'Time Warp' is practically an exact 180 degrees in the other direction, instrumental or vocals, with its uptempo thrash/hardcore shouty assault and heavy groove metal. The last song 'Paled Empty Sphere' for all you'd know is an 80's power ballad from a mainstream band.

'Until the End' is THE highlight on the record for many and a fan favorite, which appears a bit later on the album, almost like a buildup to it. It's Hypocrisy at their deepest, darkest and most sorrowful, almost to the point of being harmful and difficult to listen to. The atmosphere is sheer heavy sadness and the lyrics are made particularly intelligible and beg the listener to hear their heart-wrenching message. They're abstract and parable-like but also very real and poignant simultaneously, and they fit the instrumental perfectly. If I were to use an image to describe it, I'd say it's like the Grim Reaper's dialog with a person with all of its dramatic weight and allegorical symbolism.

More broadly the production isn't great on this, as it is surprisingly lesser than on the previous material, but that doesn't come in the way of the album communicating its essence to the listener. The guitars sound full on the power chords but a bit fizzy one the articulated riffing and lack a bit of definition during the lead parts. The drums were pushed into the background too much and the kicks are particularly neglected. There's a bit too much of that congested thickness at the center of the mixes, but in a sense this gives the album a bit of a more rustic charm.

As far as criticism for this album, it's guilty of having too many of those Inflames type harmonized melodies. They have a sort of faux-epic, blissfully happy dynamic to them, added to the fact they're often quite linear, and can quickly sound like they're just more of the exact same material. A couple of choruses have a nice chromatic chord progression in them that gives them and the album more generally that bit more distinction and mystery, and it's unfortunate it didn't exploit those ideas some more. It's also a tad uneven, as there are two or three big highlights and then very forgettable tracks. It's definitely an album that breaks away from pure/stale generic melodic death metal, but it's too bad that it shows signs of being able to be different, and shows a lot of potential, but settles for a lot of rather flat and uneventful moments and couldn't keep the tracks in that prime of the album.

Instead of breaking up, the band came back full-force in a way unheard of for them. This self-titled gem is the band's most introspective, tunefully dissonant album. It's ripe with melancholic, spacey atmosphere and straightforward melody. The reliance on this atmosphere creates a more serene, smoother album than before. It's a comforting melodic death album that still has the Hypocrisy bite and shows Tägtgren rewriting the rules of viciousness.

Bar none, this is some of the band's best writing. The blend of melodic death-level brutality, power metal-dimensional harmonies, and enigmatic atmosphere has this album leagues ahead of its peers. The production is properly balanced, clear, and clean to accompany the airy tenor of the instruments. Hypocrisy isn't a light album, but it doesn't have as crisp of a sharpness like the earlier or later albums that are more bass-heavy. The songwriting leans more toward melodic and clean riffs to enunciate (along with the keys) and build upon the bleak, spacey atmosphere. It's an unmatched feeling of total isolation and the fear of distant unknowns. "Elastic Inverted Visions," "Until The End," "Paled Empty Sphere," and especially "Disconnected Magnetic Corridors" are the backbone of this paranormal voyage.

The other batch of songs provoke less atmosphere and are the harder-hitting tracks. They are the same of what Hypocrisy would relish in: coarse riffs, parched screams, clamorous drumming, and fervent intensity. These songs prove the band's continued excellence in stampeding tempos and pummeling edge. Tägtgren's screams are mutilated and sonically frightening, Hedlund's bass grumbles vigorously, and Szoke's drumming is thunderous and perfectly executed to comply with the compositions. It's a tight performance all around that almost extends over the entire album.

At the peak of this (at the time) legacy-comeback is "Reversed Reflections". This song is a textbook example of transcending the genre. Its steady tempo, galloping main riff, and Tägtgren's towering, ghostly rough-cleans mixes with the virtuous atmosphere to create an exceedingly epic song. The climax is a fierce, harmonic solo pushing the bounds of the band's melodic fervor. It's such a high-point that it can only be matched by a high-point of the opposite spectrum - "Time Warp". As much as this is close to being one of my favorite albums, "Time Warp" had to screw it all up. It's Hypocrisy's attempt at being too cool from the wrong perspective. It just ends up sounding like a bad attempt at nu-metal angst with (substandard) thrash-styled riffing, improperly emulated brutality, and some of the worst shout-styled vocals Tägtgren's ever laid for this band.

Aside from that one glaring bomb, this is the album that defines Hypocrisy for me. It's the sci-fi themed jewel of their career that doesn't get too bloated and maintains a constant supremacy at what it tries to accomplish. Tägtgren makes full use of his ethereal cleans alongside his ghoulish screams, marking his dominance vocally. Hypocrisy is a dreary, lurid experience for listeners that should not be missed.

Hypocrisy is a band that has created some of my favorite music of all time. Everything from their old school death metal to their atmospheric death/melodic death metal is outstanding. Of their whole discography, this album has always stood out to me and been a favorite.

The songs here are catchy, epic, atmospheric, melancholic and a couple are fast, almost thrashy. The use of clean vocals is a big plus in my book. They contribute tons to the atmosphere and feeling of each song and are always used perfectly. I never found them to be out of place once. Peter's scream tends to be a lot higher here on this album than on most of their albums and it does not overpower the music one bit. Everything is mixed perfectly to contribute and not detract from each other.

The album is varied and holds many surprises for those with an open mind and those who enjoy Hypocrisy. The final song, "Paled Empty Sphere" seems to take a Pink Floyd route and create an atmospheric rock masterpiece to end the album and put the icing on the cake. This is very similar to the final song in the album "Abducted" as well.

The only reason this album does not receive a perfect score is because of one song that has always felt out of place to me. That song is "Time Warp". I can't think of any other Hypocrisy song like it, so in that aspect it seems like it would fit perfectly on an album like this. The problem is that it is so different from the other material on the album that it takes you out of the atmosphere and immersion the album has created and provides a sort of speed bump that the album could have done without.

This is an album that every fan should experience, and for many, an album that is a highlight in Hypocrisy's discography.

Of all the myriad albums which make up the genre that is melodic death metal, perhaps none strike the listener as being more varied and, indeed, unique, than Hypocrisy’s self-titled sixth album. This is the first album written after Peter Tägtgren’s initial attempt to end Hypocrisy’s existence with the aptly titled The Final Chapter, its very existence being due to the overwhelming support shown to the band by its extensive fan base.

Hypocrisy is the album which, out of the band’s career of ten released albums, along with an eleventh one being just around the corner, takes the sound of death metal drenched in superb melodic riffs creating an atmosphere of incredible depth, to its logical extreme, with amazing results. Nowhere is this achievement more apparent than in the album opener: the perfectly chosen Fractured Millennium. Starting up with an epic atmospheric intro and building up into the classic melodic death metal song that no Hypocrisy concert can do without, this song announces what is to come. In many ways, this album is the peak of the Hypocrisy sound, slowly evolving from the masterworks that The Fourth Dimension, Abducted and The Final Chapter were to create an even more melodic atmosphere. Unlike some other bands playing melodic death metal, whose music often seems to lack anything but an empty shell of what death metal represents, Hypocrisy still retain the base of the genre, evolved from their earliest albums, but with more and more melody and atmospheric infusion brought in along the way.

All of the band members are at their very best here. First of all, Peter Tägtgren must be mentioned. His songwriting is, as usual, flawless for the most part (Time Warp is something of a complete failure), his keyboard and guitar work are impressive and his vocals, excellent. The riffs are perfect for the genre they’re in: melodic death metal, atmospheric style. They’re also very memorable in almost every song, not just stale riffs which are there to fill up space instead of being genuinely enjoyable as some lesser melodic death metal acts have been known to do. Peter proves that he can either play slowly (Elastic Inverted Visions, Disconnected Magnetic Corridors) or very fast (Apocalyptic Hybrid, Fusion Programmed Minds) with little difficulty and much talent. His slower-paced songs are slightly better though, retaining much more of an atmosphere to them, with the only exception to this rule being the extraordinary breakneck-speed Fusion Programmed Minds. Hypocrisy is where Peter showcases his clean vocals off the most alongside his usual sharp shrieks and those clean vocals fit the slower songs perfectly, even making one or two of them seem like ballads, an unlikely event on such an album. Finally, Peter’s usage of his keyboards is essential to the atmosphere of the album. He can craft sounds which are melodic in nature but also evoke a wide range of emotions, from fear to awe, giving off a sense of helplessness to the listener.

Amazing as though that man may be, he isn’t the only one responsible for this album, just the leader of a talented trio whose two other thirds are Lars Szöke and Michael Hedlund. The former’s solid drumming is a distinction on its own, as he achieves a constant set of rhythm all through the album, fitting in very well with the ensemble. None of his work is even remotely technical and his drumming is far from the quality exemplified by his Norwegian successor, Horgh, but he gets the job done very well almost everywhere on the album (again, Time Warp being the faulty link). This is actually quite significant, as his talent has often waned on the other albums, especially his last two with the band. As for Michael Hedlund, his bass playing has accompanied Hypocrisy from the beginning and continues to this day, and there’s a very good reason Peter keeps him around. Well, two actually: he goes a very good job adhering his playing to the desired sound, whatever that may be (Hypocrisy’s music is nothing if not varied) and he’s, along with Peter, the last founding member of the band now that Lars has been replaced, and his presence is important in order to keep the band’s sound true to its roots, even if it is in a constant state of evolution.

Hypocrisy is almost a perfect album. There’s only one thing keeping it from being so, and that’s Time Warp. The eighth song here, it’s nowhere near the level of quality permeating each and every other part of the album. It’s more reminiscent of the most awful moments of Catch 22, if anything. Yeah, I’m referring to that pseudo nu-metal sound (more of a slight influence really) discernable in some of the songs. It’s unfortunately here, in this third and final fast-paced song on the album, although it seems that this time Peter didn’t quite manage to get it right. Drums, vocals, riffs, everything just collapses into a huge mixture of mediocrity. As awful as that song is, fortunately it only is one song and it doesn’t affect the enjoyability of the rest of the album at all. Melodic death metal never got this atmospheric or epic before or since, and anyone remotely even interested in the genre must acquire this masterpiece.

No album I've bought has had the staying power that Hypocrisy's self-titled release has. This is the defining achievement of a band that has put out quality work for more than 15 years. Classics abound on this atmospheric melodic death metal masterpiece; I've listened to "Fractured Millenium," "Until the End," and "Reversed Reflections" more than anything else. Really, its a culmination of Tägtgren's creative output. The death metal moments, the thrashier moments, and the mid-paced melodic moments are all part of Hypocrisy's trademark sound, but nowhere else are all of these done as well as on this album.

The guitarwork on this album is a real treat, as well as the vocals. Hypocrisy has never surpassed the quality of the songwriting this album contains, nor the intensity of the music, and it shows. Friends of mine that normally ignored Hypocrisy declared that the self-titled is "fucking awesome" after being introduced to it.

If you claim to like any death metal at all, this band will definitely appeal to you, and if you enjoy any melodic death metal at all, this album will fucking blow you away.

One of the best albums I've ever purchased. I'd buy it again one hundred times over.

Hypocrisy have never failed to impress with each and every album release they have made so far. With the release of their self-titled comeback album, the band reached new heights in perfecting the melodic death metal genre. After the release of their fifth full length album The Final Chapter, Hypocrisy went on what was expected to be a permanent hiatus, but after the major success of the classic death metal trending black metal release, Hypocrisy came back with their sixth full length classic album release. heir s/t is full of dark symphonic melody, blistering guitar riffs, wicked guitar solos, harmonic and scathing vocals, and atmospheres straight out of a sci-fi horror movie.

If you were to ask me what the greatest intro track was, I would say without blinking the first track on this album, Fractured Millennium. The song begins with a symphonic keyboard riffs that creates a powerful apocalyptic atmosphere. The song the ascends into a smooth drum and bass line that burst into a blistering scream, blast beats, and doom-esque guitar riffs. The song then slows down into a grooving guitar melody followed by Peter Tägtgren's scathing black metal sounding vocals. The song has a powerful atmosphere throughout and a very dynamic chorus with amazing musicianship and precision. Arguably the best Hypocrisy song ever made so far. The opening drum roll and ripping guitar solo of Apocalyptic Hybrid shows the thrash side of Hypocrisy as Peter Tägtgren belches out some deep death metal growls. The song is extremely fast paced and is easily defined as controlled chaos on the most brutal level. Although the song doesn’t contain as many presentful dynamics as the first track, it stands as a solid example of pure, scorching brutality.

Fusion Programmed Minds is a more typical Hypocrisy track, with constant catchy guitar riffs, steady blast beats and heavy bass lines. Peter Tägtgren delivers more of his screeching vocals throughout the track as the music rolls on in a constant aura of chugging riffs and thundering atmospheres. Elastic Inverted Visions is another rare example of melodic death metal at it’s prime. The song starts with mellow guitar strums followed by a catchy, ascending, doom-esque guitar riffage. The overlapping of the vocals is tested on the track, making a very electronic sounding atmosphere surrounding the slow yet heavy riffs. The song has amazing atmospheric melody and is extremely catchy as it flows in and out of it’s heavy and melodic elements.

The next track, Reversed Reflections, starts with some mid paced guitar riffs followed by some very smooth clean vocals. The song is one of the less heavy songs on the album and has real good song flow and atmosphere. Overall it is one of the more simple tracks that standout as good rest from the death metal brutality. Another on of Hypocrisy’s greatest pieces, Until The End, another doomy slow song that is fueled with heavy riffs and melodic guitar strums. The vocals on the song are some of Peter Tägtgren's best, showing a strong emotional tact to them. The song has great atmosphere and amazing musical aspects that make it one of the highlights of the album. Going back to a more typical melodic death metal style, Paranormal Mysteria kicks off with some heavy, slow riffs that pick up into a very upbeat, atmospheric tune followed by some screeching vocals as the song hits it’s crushing bridge. The song has some great riffs and grooves, but does not compare so much with some of the other tracks. Still easily a great song on this great album.

Every Hypocrisy album has at least one oddball track, and Time Warp being the one on this album. The song is very fast and very thrashy for the most part with yelling vocals that almost sound like nu-metal vocals mixed with Slayer. The song then steadies it’s pace as Peter Tägtgren continues to yell endlessly. The song is by far the worst on the album, but by no means a bad song (just more or less deeply out of place). The song will appeal to thrash fans the most from this CD. The deep and melodic atmosphere of the opening riffs to Disconnected Magnetic Corridors tell you you’re heading into another powerful, melodic track. The song is very straightforward and mellow toned, but catchy, along with more amazing vocals and bass work. The song is best described as one of those melodic death metal tracks that never seem to end but when it does you wish was longer.

As if the previous track wasn’t melodic enough, Paled Empty Sphere takes the cake as Hypocrisy’s ballad track. The song is the only one on the album that does not show much of a death metal influence (meaning the song could fit on an album by Hypocrisy that is the equivalent of Opeth’s Damnation). Every thing about the song is perfectly executed in a progressive atmosphere of melodic guitar strums, catchy bass tunes, slow drumming, dynamic choruses, and beautiful singing. A perfect closer track for a perfect album.

THIS WAS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN FOR SPUTNIKMUSIC.COM

I picked this up with Entombed's "Wolverine Blues," both for under ten dollars. "Wolverine Blues" rolls this album up, smokes it, eats the roach, shits out the digested roach, and then makes the next copy of "Hypocrisy" each those shitty roach bits. While I gladly would have paid double for Entombed's excellent entry into the death n roll genre, they should have paid me to take this lackluster excuse for a Hypocrisy album off their shelves.

Hypocrisy is one of my favorite Swedeath bands, as they manage to blend the new ear for melody with the traditional stomping, fuzzy, brutal sound of Stockholm. Another reason I like them is that you're always able to tell that it's Evil Pete behind the whole thing - every album has his own peculiar muse stamped all over it. In this case, Pete's muse must have gotten lost. Or maybe wandered down a back alley, injected full of heroin, and gang-banged by Ben Folds Five.

Gone is the evil sound that filled the "Obsculum Obscenum" days, missing is the raw and spontaneous nature of "Into the Abyss," and not-yet-formulated is the perfect balance of "Virus." Hell, even that "Abduction" album is better than this, at least there were a couple cool songs on there amidst the nu-leanings.

What you get on "Hypocrisy" is a bunch of watered down melodeath riffs that fail to catch the listener's ear, a weak (at best) vocal performance from Pete that is completely bogged down in ATROCIOUS clean sections, drumming that may have been sampled from any other low-effort Gothenburger. What does it equal? An album to trade, instantly. Which I did - thanks to the trading section at the Metal Archives forum. I hope the cool dude I traded with in Poland enjoys this more than I did.

So in summary, avoid. If you want to collect everything Hypocrisy has put out, think twice about the middle section of their discography. I certainly won't be pursuing it any further. A few of these songs sounded cool on the concert DVD accompanying "Virus" - maybe all the spirit was sucked out of them by the production, recording process, bandmember mindset, who knows? This I do know - Hypocrisy is capable of much better.

After standing on the verge of breaking up for some time around 1997, Hypocrisy needed something strong to mark their comeback. Therefore they dived into writing new material, and the result was an album that was originally meant to be called "Cloned", but for various reasons that title was dropped so the band made the decision to simply call it "Hypocrisy", to further underline its character of a new beginning. The "farewell" tour that followed the release of "The Final Chapter" and the devotion of the band's fans worldwide filled Peter, Mikael and Lars with new energy, and harmony inside the band was re-established when all the members (and not just Peter) began to contribute with ideas for the songwriting again.
With this album, the experimentation that began with "The Forth Dimension" and was later more developed with "Abducted" reached a new peak. Diversified song structures paved the way for bold and unusual arrangements, with Peter stretching the limits of his voice to fit the particular mood of each of the songs. Of course, the sound was once more excellent, as in everything produced in the well-known Abyss Studio.

"Hypocrisy" begins "Fractured Millennium", a perfect album opener with its great buildup at the beginning: first, eerie keyboards set a kind of sci-fi atmosphere (typical of post-1994 Hypocrisy), then the powerful bass and drums join the melody, and finally the guitars kick in, announced by an abrasive pickscape and accompained by Peter's raucous, inhuman scream. It's clear from the start that the band took more time to work out the arrangements of the songs (which were already excellent on the previous efforts), and even the sound manages to be better than in the past: the guitars are still acid and overpowering but not as sharp as they were on "Abducted", the drums have more power, the bass is thicker and the keyboards are given a more rounded and full presence. The vocals, however, are a story of their own. As said, on this album Peter tried to experiment on his voice, probing different solutions for each and every song. He uses several kind of voices - rasping screams, deep growls, clean chants and more - but instead of using one instead of the other, he often uses two or more of them together, adjusting their levels in the mix so that one of them dominates over the others but leaves them still very audible. This adds a new dimension to the sound, and indeed "Hypocrisy" has an aural depth unparalleled by any other album at the time, which fits perfectly the more intricate song structures.
"Fractured Millennium" itself is a mid-tempo in the vein of the band's "hit" "Roswell '47", but this time the melodies, while still being catchy and powerful at the same time, are more complex and mature in their key changes, the guitars create layers and layers of distorted melodies and Peter's vocals complete the job - there are clean vocals hidden in the chorus. This song has really a lot of stuff going on, despite its accessible nature, which is quite an achievement.

For a complete contrast, "Apocalyptic Hybrid" hits the listener like a train with its frightful speed and aggression. This song is best described as a relentless maelstrom of riffs flowing one into another at breakneck speed; the guitar work is insane, the drums never slow down, the vocals are sinister menacing. The display of musicianship shown here is totally amazing, this has to be one of the most frantic and mercless numbers Hypocrisy have ever put out - and yes, I'm counting the first albums too.
"Fusion Programmed Minds" lets the listener recover with some seconds of laid back distortion as an intro, but soon explodes into a Maiden-esque galloping groove that sustains the whole song. Peter sticks to sharp screams on this one, although on the chorus he tries a kind of semi-clean rasp that really gets me. The riffs are great, once more, so the song is a winner on the musical side too.
"Elastic Inverted Visions" is a track written by the band as a whole, and showcases some of the album's best melodic ideas so far; opening with a simple but really cool clean guitar line, this song becomes another great Hypocrisy mid-tempo with layers of guitars and keyboards building a great atmosphere. Peter shines once more, as he uses clean but aggressive vocals paired with hsi tradeemark screams, and even goes into a dual voice clean part during a quiet break.
The speed goes up again for "Reversed Reflections", another Classic Metal-influenced track built on some seriously kick-ass riffs, perfectly balancing melody and crunch. This is where Peter begins focusing more on clean vocals, and does a great job at it, as a good deal of melodic depth (like in the bridge) is provided indeed by his multi-tracked voice.

"Until the End" is one of the slowest moments of the album, but doesn't definitely lack in power thanks to its great riffs and Lars's clever bass drumming, which stays quiet during the verse, becomes faster during the bridge and reaches a peak in the chorus - and the rhythm always stays the same. The vocals are mostly clean and again multi-tracked to create beautiful harmonies, with Peter coming up with a low and sorrowful voice in the chorus (kinda reminds me of Andrew Eldritch of the Sisters Of Mercy); sorrowful is indeed the best adjective to describe the mood of the song, moved on with a slow and depressive pace by majestic keyboards and sad guitar melodies.
"Paranormal Mysteria" brings the groove back with a vengeance, an almost Black Sabbath-ish idea perverted by the band's post-Death Metal sound; wicked riffs rule the scene with little room for keyboards (which however fit perfeclty whenever they come in), and Peter's eveil screams return to the front, although there are brief (and wonderful) clean breaks to be found.
After such a streak of mid-tempos and slow meditations, the impact produced by "Time Warp" is even stronger than it would normally be. Although less frantic than "Apocalyptic Hybrid", this clearly Thrash-influenced assault is loaded with speed and anger; Peter's voice is clean but ferocious, and paired with some sharp-edged screaming outburtsts (the gradual switch from clean to screaming voice in "you're sucked into the time wwwWWWWAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRP!!!!" gets me every time). The riffs are some of the most powerful to be found in the band's cataloue, the drumming is relentless... yes, it's a great track, one of my favourites actually.

In complete contrast with the former assault, "Disconnected Magnetic Corridors" sticks to a slow tempo all the way through, but the variation that the rhythm doesn't bring is provided by the very complex melodic apparate. The riffs are linked to each other via very unusual and almost awkward key changes (and often loose harmonic structures can be found within one single riff), yet the superb arrangement makes the whole lot flow on very smoothly. The song has an almost psychedelic edge with its ethereal riffs and vocals, and every single instrument provides intricate melodic lines that blend in together wonderfully: the guitars and keyobards soar all over the place, the multi-tracked vocals summon unforgettably beautiful lines and Mikael's powerful bass creates the shape-shifting backbone which keeps the weird harmonic structures from clashing into cacophony and leads the song into ever unexpected directions. It's also interesting to note that this song, despite the very laid back drumming, was written by none less than Lars, who had also contributed with "Time Warp", just to show how much the whole band's involvement into the songwriting process breathed new life into the band's already wide-scoped sound.
"Paled Empty Sphere", the "official" closing track, was penned by Mikael and Peter like "Until teh End", and once again is a rather slow and melodic number, although not as overwhelmingly sad as the former. This song retains a pretty oniric atmosphere from the beautiful intro (featuring just quite keyboards and clean guitars) to the intense chorus; once again the arrangement is fantastic, as the guitars and keyboards grow louder along the way and reach a peak in the chorus, as Peter's clean vocals do. Great melodies, and great atmosphere. Tenth winner in a row.
There is, however, one more track to be found: "Self Inflicted Overload", which was listed as a bonus track on the first pressing of the album but actually appears in the subsequent regular copies anyway (luckily). This song is a pretty straightforward heabanger, really great to listen to; it's clear why the band decided to include it as a bonus track and not as part of the official tracklist, because it doesn't really fit with the rest of the songs. Peter's vocals are once again harsh for this one, although his high pitched screams at the end ("you won't get me aliiiiiiiiiiive"!) are something you don't want to miss.

With this album, Hypocrisy wanted to impress, and they sure did impress me. It's easy to get into, but offers something new with each and every listen thanks to its multi-layered song structures, and once again is a flawless display of mature musicianship served with the best production one can imagine. It's a great start if you are getting into Hypocrisy, and essential for any fan of the band. This is an album that deserves to be owned by any Metal fan, actually, so I'd better end this review here and let you go and get it.