Review Summary: A furious, frantic musical assault on the ears that shouldn't fail to make any thrash fan's jaw drop.
By the year 2000, it was clear to many that thrash metal had pretty much died off. The genre remained stale, with the occasional band popping up every once in a blue moon to release an album that wouldn't even make it onto the radar. Even the bands that had helped the genre get off its feet and supported it had all abandoned it-Metallica and Megadeth and the like had gone off appealing to more of a commercial market, whilst Slayer were content to live off the Slipknot hype train. It would stay this way until around the time when bands such as Kreator were releasing their supposed comeback albums (Violent Revolution in Kreator's case). But Hypnosia in 2000 had something to say about this, and delivered their one boot to the face of the music industry.
It is hard to envision an existence where thrash metal could get any more extreme than the one album that Hypnosia put together before disbanding in 2002. There is something about the frantic, out of control drumming, furious shrieks of sheer torment and insanely fast guitar work that places this above and beyond all other extreme thrash bands. Hypnosia hail from Sweden and they are not afraid to show it with the hints of death and black metal influences scattered throughout, and yet Extreme Hatred is still nothing more than an unflinchingly brutal thrash metal album at heart. The best way of describing Extreme Hatred (aside from the two words on the front cover), would be to mix Slayer with the speed of bands such as Cannibal Corpse at times and then throw in a Mille Petrozza-sounding character with even more of a raspy, high pitched shriek. And boy, does this album destroy the competition.
Hypnosia do not mess around with clean, acoustic introductions, as though they knew that there was no room for any such lunacy when the genre they were attempting to get back on its feet was dead. The title track opens up with some demented shrieking and brutal riffage and this is pretty much the formula for the majority of the album. The drumming is chaotic and thunders ahead at a thousand miles per hour, with Circle Of The Flesh in particularly showing off the psychotic speeds that deceased drummer Mikael Sjostrand was capable of playing at. Never once is there a slip in speed here despite how inhumanly fast most of this release is. There are also the occasional slower moments such as the Angel Of Death-sounding middle part of the title track or the slower part of Traumatic Suffering which develops a really evil atmosphere at around three minutes into that song, with some chords that are left to ring out whilst a barrage of double-bass drumming is thrown at the listener. This is an album that paces itself beautifully.
The riffs are brutal and as intense as could be asked for, with the usual assortment of tremolo picked guitar lines that feel as though nails are being driven through the listener's ear. The slower riffs are well executed, with a lot of use of pull-offs whilst the chord-based riffs that are occasionally found, such as on Act Of Lunacy during its mid-paced section, are really well written and never hold this album back. That track in particular makes great use of a galloping riff as well that reminds me of some old-school Slayer riffs and definitely sounds straight out of the 1980's. There are also some rather intricate, fiddly riffs that show off a surprising level of technical proficiency from the two guitarists of this band. One such example would be on Mental Terror, the short penultimate track that never fails to make my jaw drop. It is clear that the band went all out on this song to show off just how much mastery of their instruments they have, as the guitars are absolutely all over the place, with barely a break in sight.
One factor of the band's sound that may divide some opinions is the vocals. Mikael Castervall sounds somewhat like Mille Petrozza on a diet of razor blades, with a very raspy and over the top nature of screaming with a black metal bent to it. He throws himself into every song with utmost conviction, yelping over the schizophrenic instrumentals with so much anger and rage, whilst never dipping into the cliche of ranting about religion randomly. Mainly, the lyrics of this deal with war and other subjects that are dark and easy to throw anger into, but there is even a song about Lord Of The Rings. Hang Em High and The Storms are probably the best vocal performances here and they just absolutely destroy nearly every other band's vocals out there. If you are after one album where the vocals perfectly compliment the musicianship, then this is one. What is even more amazing is that Mikael also performs guitar, which is rather impressive given the madness on display.
The only real drawback for this album is that the production is not the best out there. On Hang Em High at the beginning, the guitars sound a little flat, and the cymbals have an annoying tendency to ring out for far too long and dominate the mix. The bass is also completely inaudible which is rather disappointing given how loud everything else is in the mix here. The opening cymbal hits that lead into the slower but more technical intro to Traumatic Suffering embody everything bad about the production here as they are far too loud and continue to be throughout that entire slow section of the song, even when the vocals first come in. Aside from this, however, Hypnosia really did deliver one furious assault on the ears, and one that everyone into thrash metal should check out.
