HYPOCRISY
Virus
(Nuclear Blast Records)
44:31min

2005 brings us two surprising evolutions from the HYPOCRISY camp: first of all it seems that since the success of PAIN Mr. Workholic Tägtgren seems to get rid off his commercial and experimental craziness with that outfit. To the point, don’t expect a pathetic modern thrilled album like “Catch 22” in 2005, but I guess even a good selling act like HYPOCRISY doesn’t take risks in days when CDs are lying like rocks in the stores. So, it’s natural that the bigger bands deliver what their fans expect them to be. Second good thing is the involvement of ex – IMMORTAL / GRIMFIST drummer Horgh, cause it would have be a shame if Peter wouldn’t speed up the material with having such a blastmachine in the band. Shortly said: 4 out of the 11 tracks are definitely fast fuckers, especially ‘Bloodrenched’ is a real fist in the face which I haven’t heard from them for a long time. As I already said HYPOCRISY plays the poker game on “Virus” for sure, with all elements that made the band so big within the last years and in terms of the songwriting they definitely know how to hide small and fine detailed arrangements in each song. On one hand you could say that HYPOCRISY is starting to repeat, but feelingwise I think that this album has much more of the spirit of the great “Abducted” days than several other releases which they delivered within the last 7 years. And that is for me definitely a satisfying and positive result, especially because of the fact that I didn’t expect anything that good from HYPOCRISY again.

Ralf Hauber

Ralf Hauber

Related reviews / interviews:
HYPOCRISY - 10 Years Of Chaos And Confusion (Frank Stöver)

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