Hypocrisy
Abducted

THE REVIEW

In 1996, the follow-up to "The Fourth Dimension," an album that catapulted Hypocrisy to the top of the Swedish death scene, was released by Nuclear Blast.

Under the apparent monotony of themes related to the UFO world, Hypocrisy manages to express much broader and more varied content than other death metal bands: the arrival of the alien people is seen with hope, a metaphor for a possibly bright future; contact with the Stranger is also described in terms of demonic evocation, with a mix of exultation and horror; from these ideas emerge two gems like "Roswell 47" and "The Arrival Of The Demons (part 2)," slow and evocative, full of feeling, with a melodic progression unknown even to other Swedish death groups. The first is one of the group's anthems: it is a harsh attack on the system, guilty of having concealed the landing of the alien race on Earth at the famous American site of Roswell, back in 1947; the drabness of the modern town, with its UFO fraud-museums, is light-years away: the theme in Hypocrisy is only a pretext for a series of considerations that show a progressive detachment from society, from humanity. A separation that materializes in "Paradox": an epic-flavored mid-tempo on which Peter Tagtgren's vocals are layered, alternating between desperate growl and filtered, cold, distant voice, which underscores the protagonist's final alienation, forced into suicide.

The album is a successful succession of fast-paced tracks, typically death, supported by the band's notable technical skill (without any virtuosity dear to their American counterparts) and other more thought-out ones: "Buried" is Hypocrisy's "Piece By Piece"; centered on the pleasure of torturing and killing, yet it hides a deeper meaning within the context of the album, representing the suffering that the system (or the state, as it's not specified) cruelly inflicts on people, physically and mentally. "Alien" is the term around which the album's concept revolves: the descent of aliens, those from another planet, persecuted and eliminated like the "aliens" living here on Earth, the "different" ones who are mocked and blamed every day; the alienation of the individual faced with the chilling Power of some Political entity above them; the fascination/terror of man towards the Alien, the element of difference that disrupts their life.

The final triptych decidedly abandons the extreme territories, choosing rock-oriented solutions, following in the footsteps of the Pink Floyd, a passion of the singer; "Slippin' Away" brings the listener before the scene of the protagonist's suicide: Peter sings in the chorus "Bury the pain/ As I bury the knife in my body/Slowly slippin' away/ To another dimension of virtue". Detachment from life that may perhaps never materialize given the lyrics of "Drained"; the man is "drained" of all passion, of all joy, living like an automaton through the useless days he has left: he has lost.

A MUST-HAVE