Hypocrisy
Hypocrisy Destroys Wacken
Nuclear Blast
After extensively touring for 1996’s The Final Chapter , the much-lauded Hypocrisy finally returns after a recording drought with the fittingly titled Hypocrisy Destroys Wacken , a live album recorded at the Wacken Open Air Festival last summer. Usually, live albums are rather disposable, and serve only as a stop-gap between albums (apparently, such is partially the case here – the liner notes promise a new album will be out May 25th this year), but Destroys Wacken has that hectic rush all the best death metal live albums have, with vocalist/guitarist Peter Tagtgren announcing the song-to-be-played by a sharp shift from speaking voice to grunt-growl, only to be followed by the rest of the band whiplashing into the song–now that’s a fuckin’ rush! The sound quality is surprisingly clear but burly nonetheless, the perfect middle ground to accentuate Hypocrisy’s adept balance of ripping melodicism and jaw-dropping brutality. Not much else to say here, being that Hypocrisy has firmly established itself as one of the few challenging, creative powerhouses in death metal – that’s Sweden (home of other greats Entombed, Unleashed, Dissection, and many others) for ya.
Nuclear Blast America, P.O. Box 43618, Philadelphia, PA 19106; http://www.nuclearblast-usa.com
