Hypocrisy doesn’t settle for a routine performance with its latest album “Worship”

Peter Tägtgren, the talented jack of all trades of metal music, is back. With the world’s gears grounded to a halt in early 2020 due to COVID-19, the Swedish multi-instrumentalist finally found the time to finalize the latest studio album of Hypocrisy, a death metal band he has helmed since its birth in 1991. “Worship” is the band’s 13th studio effort, and even though the maestro himself doesn’t admit to being superstitious, album’s presales and quality of music contained within attest to 13 being quite the lucky number for Hypocrisy and its fans alike.

The album, clocking at just over fifty minutes, opens with a deceptively mellow acoustic intro. Listener isn’t held in confused suspense for too long as the melodic sentimentalism is overtaken soon by the distinct Hypocrisy pummeling made up of tight riffing, killer drum beats, and Peter Tägtgren’s growling vocals still sounding great even at the age of 51. This rollercoaster ride lasting just under an hour doesn’t have a boring turn in it and, rightfully so, considering that the man with the controls has three decades worth of experience producing metal music. Atmospheric changes within the album from the moodiest melancholic bits to the fastest bursts of aggression are so smoothly balanced that the listener simply doesn’t have the time to grow bored to any of the musical facets. In terms of production “Worship” represents Hypocrisy at its finest, and despite the precision and grandiosity made possible by modern technology the album sounds warm and sufficiently loose. The sort of plastic congestion dominating the soundscape of many modern metal bands is nowhere to be heard on “Worship”.

Peter Tägtgren has never come across to me as a master lyricist and I wouldn’t be throwing any Nobel or Pulitzer prizes in his direction with this album, either. Even so the album’s lyrics that are written before the COVID-19 disaster are eerily prescient. One can only imagine the spine-tingling chills Tägtgren must have felt when, relatively soon after writing the lyrics for this record, reading news about approaching vaccine mandates, COVID-19 passports, and ever tightening restrictions to our freedom in the name of health and safety. As if this wasn’t bad enough, a careful listener can pick up lyrics from the album dealing with ordinary people tearing each other to shreds over trivial issues while those in power happily observe and feed off of the chaos. Tägtgren hasn’t confessed to being Nostradamus and I see no reason to doubt him in this matter: His foresight can be seen boil down on an age-old wisdom: so it has always been, and so it shall always be.

Next year’s October will mark the 30th anniversary of Hypocrisy‘s debut album. Since then the band has amassed a catalog of 13 studio albums from which Tägtgren himself has named “Abducted”, “Catch 22” and “Virus” as particular highlights. It’s easy for me to imagine a future where the songwriter and his fans alike will elevate “Worship” to that same hall of fame – it’s such an all-around excellent performance Tägtgren and his henchmen have put forward this time around.

Tracklist:

1. Worship
2. Chemical Whore
3. Greedy Bastards
4. Dead World
5. We’re The Walking Dead
6. Brotherhood Of The Serpent
7. Children Of The Gray
8. Another Day
9. They Will Arrive
10. Bug In The Net
11. Gods Of The Underground