Hypocrisy – Into The Abyss
Album Information
This album is a very intensive and energic album from Hypocrisy, as in the previous albums the classic trio is playing on this album (Peter, Mikael and Lars). This album is a follow-up tp their self-titled album but this album is considered to be one of their less finest albums. During the ‘90s the album was one of Swedens most brutal exports. The album is not their finest but it delivers many energic and heavy shredding riffs from the band, there is also some thrash influences on some of the tracks that make an interesting sound. Soaring guitars and screaming/growling vocals is the main sound in this album.
The Band Members
Peter is a very talented musician, he may not be the best but you can hear very clear that he always improves his skills in their earlier work. Good guitars but it doesn’t have any special sound, it sounds the same like it does on the other records and it becomes torned and boring when you listen to much of it.
The bad thing about Hypocrisy is that Mikaels bass does not get much attention. In their first album as a trio you could here the bass-line quite well in a few songs but in their later stuff the bass always fades away because of the guitars. This might be a disapointment to bass players though.
Lars is doing a great job on the drums, he plays tight and can play in many impressive ways. Both slow and fast, but from my part the intensive drumming is just to much and I get bored very fast. It surely requires great skills to play like this and I think that Lars deserves alot of credit for being a drummer.
The Songs
There are many fast songs in this album as I said before, there is not so much melodic moments but you can here them in the last track which sounds like a ballad, Deathrow (no regrets) is about a death penalty when a person is going to be electified in the electric chair. It is the only melodic track on the album.
Some of the most furious and brutal songs can be for example ¨Unleash The Beast¨, fast shredding riffs with fast drumming, not intensive as in other songs. Screaming vocals and primal screams makes the song explode with energy, one of the best songs of the album. ¨Total Eclipse¨ and ¨Sodomized¨ is also examples of the raw and chaotic songs which is on the album.
There is also of course slow, heavy grinding songs with melodic tunes and those songs are named ¨Fire In The Sky¨ and ¨Resurrected¨. Once again the guitars is to loud and soaring and the vocals are distorted and twisted.
Pros
-Very energic songs
-Strong vocals
Cons
-Poor bass on lot of the tracks
-Same old guitar sounds
-You get really tired of listening to the album
Final Rating
This was no challenge to review this album from my part, there were some good songs but my patience ran out very quick, it was to intensive for me to listen at. It was a small disapointment becuase this album doesn’t show alot of the amazing skills that the band is capable of. They are indeed good to deliver devastating riffs and drumming but the high-distroted guitar and lack of bass almost hurts your hearing if you don’t add lot of base on you r stereo or wathever. I can recommend this album to people that is really into death-metal but not to the unexperienced. So the final rating will be: 3.5/5
