HISTORY
This is a thrash-metal band from Sweden, they created a band called
Hypnosia in 1995, but they only made one album before they disbanded in 2002. But this is not a thrash-metal band in the same spirit as
Metallica or
Testament for example. This group was focused on extreme-thrash and you can hear that this material reminds you of early
Kreator, but this band is best described as a mix between 70% furious thrash-metal blended with 30% brutal death-metal (think
Kreator forged with
At The Gates). As many extreme-metal bands and metal bands in general these guys were focusing their lyrics towards hatred and violence, I can't notice any sorts of satanic themes in this album, just plain anger and aggression.
ALBUM INFORMATION
If you thought that thrash-metal was dying out then you were totally wrong!
Hypnosia came to the world to prove that thrash-metal still stands proud even after twenty years since the genre first appeared. This album is called
''Extreme Hatred'' and this was their only full-lengh album and this album
is extreme, if you thought that only black or death-metal bands were the leading genres in the extreme metal field you were wrong once again. This album beats the living sh*t out of most bands, both past and present bands. This album is loaded with furious energy, aggression and heaviness. The album does not only have thrash elements in it, the band also delivers guitar work which sounds similar to both death and black-metal music, so this album is a very good all-round album that would interest most extreme metal-heads.
BAND MEMBERS
It was very difficult to find good data about this band but I think I finally got the right line-up for this album, this album was performed by four members, we begin with
Mikael ''Cab'' Castervall. He was the vocalist and guitarist in this album,
Mikael delivers high-qualty vocal work that really suits their music. The vocals are very similar to both
Kreator's frontman
Mille Petrozza and most of the Norwegian black-metal singers. These vocals are very raspy, somewhat yell, but yet razor-sharp, but
Mikael does not only use this type of singing, he also delivers a few growls here and there.
Mikael was a guitarist alongside
Hampus Klang who also was a guitarist. They both deliver flawless guitar work, the riffage is very heavy, intensive and most of the time very advanced. Both of them churns out riffs after riffs and flesh-tearing shredds, the solos are though not as great as the overall guitar work but there are some nice solos here. The solos are though sometimes a bit melodic but most of the time they are quite chaotic and fast-played.
Lenny Blade was the bassist of this band, unfortunatly I must say that the bass is not so audible, but it does make a very rock-solid and steady rhythm section, there are no bass standout performances but the rhythm sections are very thick because of the bass.
Mikael Sjostrand was the drummer in this band, unfortunatly this drummer has past away quite recently. But he will be remembered as a bad-a** drummer, the drum patterns are just amazing in this album, the drumming is heavy,
very heavy. There are mighty double-bass kicking and machine-gun pounding. These drums is definitely not some kind of lazy work, the drums just pukes out energetic and heavy patterns, the patterns also has a very good variety in them making the songs unique and very interesting.
MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS ALBUM
This was an album that I fell in love with instantly, as soon as I heard this song called
The Last Remains I was hooked. This song delivered massive drum work, the shredds were very heavy and extremly catchy, you just want to headbang to a song like this. This song contained everything the band is capable of, variated vocal work you name it. One thing I really liked was the perfect mix of extreme elements, you had both some splashes from death/black-metal in basically every song and nothing became to much. Songs like
The Last Remains,
Operation Clean-Sweep and
Comatose are some of the best tracks that has a great blend of all these elements in my opinion. Some things I also liked about this album was the vocals and the drum work, these vocals has given the word ''sharp'' a whole new meaning, these vocals really cuts its way through the songs, like hot knife through butter. And the drumming, this drummer almost goes berserk on the drums, the drumming is very heavy and then I mean it. Everything was perfectly fitted in the song patterns, the double-kicking enters at the right moments and really gives you some adrenaline shots. If you thought that these guys couldn't deliver melodic tunes then you were wrong, thats three times in a row. The track called
Gates Of Cirith-Ungol, actually delivers some melodic half-acousitic guitar work along with medium-paced chuga-chuga shredding. The song is an instrumental song, the song builds up with time and it gets heavier and heavier, the song pattern also builds up until it becomes a more thrash-based song. Thats my thoughts about this album, I really can't any negative things about this album, except that the band is disbanded and only released this one album and a couple of demoes.
MY CONCLUSION
There you have it, I have done my best to be as accurate as possible. Man, I didn't know that my home country (Sweden) had this type of music, I do know that Sweden is very popular in the death-metal areas but not in thrash-metal. This was definitely a great extreme-metal album, this was straight-up in-your-face thrash-metal, the songs were devastating and caused destruction. I really loved this album and if you like bands like
Kreator,
Dark Angel,
Morbid Saint and other extreme bands you will love this album. This album is nothing for the faint of heart, remember, this album will kick your a** so hard that your nose will bleed. I had a fun time reviewing this album and I hope this was a good guidance for you dear metal-heads.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS
-- The Last Remains
-- Operation Clean-Sweep
-- Comatose
-- The Lunacy Act
(
these are my personal favorites but I think that you should search for the whole album)
This album will get a 4.5/5 because of the incredible energy, amazing drum work, and precised guitar work
