How interesting, yet frightening, would it be to see the end of the world. Granted, I would give half of my possessions to even get to know of what the world will be over millions of years, or even billions. If the end would be in sight, there will be lots of emotion, no doubt. As music is very often relevant to emotion, it brings up my major question. What will the music be that defines “the end of the world”? It’s a rather odd question that most people will not even give 2 seconds to think about it, yet it’s very interesting. Will it be the themes and orgasmic riffs that Godspeed you! Black Emperor likes to play? Or is the schizophrenic art music that Muse likes to put out? Either way, I would disagree with both of that. I search from another perspective, and my final output would be the Hypocrisy act
Hypocrisy is an atmospheric/apocalyptical death metal band from Sweden. It consist of the workaholic: Peter Tatgren, a person that remains unnoticed by many people, let alone metalheads. Although this guy has tons of side-projects, this is considered by people to be his best band. Although he started in 1992 as a guitarist, side with another guitarist, some changes made him to be the vocalist, guitarist and keyboardist. This instrument virtuosity of Peter helped the sound change from rather standard death/black metal to a unique and balanced sound that some bands only could dream of. Although the sound changed very much throughout years The
Final Chapter comes down as the most defining
Hypocrisy record. It was both the end of the first era, and also made the standards for the new era.
With the first track, it’s quite obvious that this album was a influence of what
Hypocrisy would later record.
Inseminated Adoption is quite similar of the first two tracks of
Virus:
War-Path and
scrutinized. The riffs have an dark sphere around it, but never blatantly overuse the evilness of it. The same goes for
Adjusting the Sun, a beautiful yet heavy track with vocal harmonies changing from intense shrieking to a more sad clean vocal use. Two more tracks that define the intense but melodic way they had chosen the intense
Through The Window Of Time, mainly based on a twisted melody line played immediately in the first seconds. The other song, the second-last song on the CD is
Evil Invaders. It’s a cover song written by
Razor, a rather unknown Canadian metal band. It’s a straight-forward metal song, and approaches the Trash genre more than the other songs. As intense, and heavy these songs can be, the truly glory of
Hypocrisy has yet to come.
The album is full with the apocalyptical masterpieces that
Hypocrisy is known for. Their tradition to add songs fully concentrated on the atmospheric feeling started with
Abducted, the previous record of
The Final Chapter. This time,
Hypocrisy mainly concentrated on the slow, burning and evil tracks. The best example is the title track
The Final Chapter. The grudging guitar picks and chanting is best shown on here. Peter does a perfect imitation of a scientist, discovering the way why we live (something to do with Aliens observing us). Unlike most
Hypocrisy records,
The Final Chapter has more than one apocalyptical concentrated song.
Inquire Within,
Request Denied and
A Coming Race are all three brilliant efforts, with great alternating between the chanting and screaming. At last we have the more average
Shamateur and
Lies. While
Shamateur concentrates too much on the evil aspect,
Lies just fails to be interesting. There is no single enjoyment compared to the earlier described gems.
Yet the band managed to kill some of the beauty the album seem to have. Although there are some minor letdowns, such as the mainly inaudible bass and the lack of diversity among some guitar riffs, the main fault lies within their older influences. While their earlier records were not bad at all, their newer records defined the apocalyptical sound
Hypocrisy has. Songs such as
Dominion and
Last Vanguard concentrate more on the furious chaos that
Hypocrisy used to be. While it’s not bad at all, since there are quite some good lead riffs here and there, it doesn’t live up to the standard of the earlier described songs.
As I said, this is
Hypocrisy’s most defining record. Everything is present of what they used to be, what they are now, and hopefully what they will be. Their apocalyptical atmosphere moved music to a higher level, and although that seems rather fanboyish, it really is. Music has never been such apocalyptical, and emotion-based, this record does a rather fine job. It took music really to a newer level.
Top 6:
1. The Final Chapter (the best song Hypocrisy has ever written)
2. Inquire Within
3. Adjusting The Sun
4. Request Denied
5. Inseminated Adoptions
6. Evil Invaders
Songs that I don’t care for:
Lies
