Death metal fans aren't supposed to get sad and blue, right? Just pissed off. Anger is the lifeblood of the death metal fanatic, as manifested in the caustic, violent lyrical and musical content of the subgenre.
Regardless of the blood and gut level to which your favorites aspire, however, sadness is a basic human emotion that cannot be overrun or buried in a tsunami of inner ire. So I ask again, what do death metal fans listen to when they are sad and blue? Probably what death metal musicians write when they are experiencing the same emotions.
Enter Peter Tagtgren, who channels a significant range of emotions onto disk that emerged from his particularly painful divorce, as his band's self titled release will attest. Of course the lyrics wallow in Tagtgren's trademark paranormal, millennial paranoia, yet it's a smokescreen that wears itself thin. The music speaks louder than the words, and the vibe of this album, as conveyed in this surprisingly mostly mid-tempo affair, is one of funereal and mournful dejection. A soundtrack for metalhead depression.
Perhaps it is for this reason that the album has been so difficult for me to contextualize and to grade. To be honest with you, I have had a hell of a time solidifying my opinion of this opus. Sometimes, listening to it in its entirety elicits a "This is certainly one of the greatest albums of the year!" sort of response, while at other times I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Maybe this is because it tweaks with expectations on a number of different levels. First, as I mentioned earlier, sadness and heartbreak are more often than not relegated to the pop charts, the emotional impetus for many a country and western tearjerker. In addition to the lyrical themes, the musical delivery itself tends to defy strict death metal categorization. Start with Tagtgren's vocals, for instance. Abandoning a solely atonal grunting championed by the majority of the death metal elite, Tagtgren moves from a raspy and throaty screaming to a rolling grumble to - gasp - actually singing throughout the collection of tunes. The variety is affective and appreciated, since quite often a monotonous vocal delivery seems to set back a great deal of death metal bands.
The most significant genre bending, however, occurs in the music itself. Death metal is rarely identified with associations to the progish atmospherics of Pink Floyd and the like, yet these sensibilities dominate much of the album. Sure, the CD contains more familiar Hypocrisy fare, such as the speedy "Time Warp" and one of my personal favorites from the collection, "Apocalyptic Hybrid." However, songs such as "Disconnected Magnetic Corridors" and "Paled Empty Sphere" are soft and even contemplative, perhaps the two exemplars of the mood disseminated throughout the album. And I would be amiss if I failed to mention "Until the End," quite possibly the sleeper - and I mean that in the good way - of the CD. It is here where Tagtgren is his most conspicuous, letting his guard down and exposing without shame some of the album's emotional underpinnings. And to top it all off, each song is packed with its own subtle intricacies - a harmonizing vocal residing just beneath the surface of the infamous Tagtgren shriek or a bit of keyboard noodling that ups the ante on both the full frontal assault and the mellow drone of guitar laden airiness.
In concluding this review, I realize that I am on a "This is goddamned great" high, concerning my take on Hypocrisy. After all, this is a CD that successfully stretches some boundaries and wreaks havoc on a few others. A manifesto of and for a sad metalhead.
