HYPOCRISY - Virus
August 15, 2005, 19 years ago
(Nuclear Blast)
Peter’s back churning his mechanized doom at a verbosity of velocities, but the main difference in the terrible tale is that Immortal’s Horgh is on as drummer, the result – because of him or nae – being a Hypocrisy record that is blackened emotion and near black metal proportions rhythmically. For his vocals, Peter has chosen a smeared and geared caw only this side of Angela Gossow, his death metal barks sort of creamy and manufactured at once, or at least machine-like in their producer-dominant integration with the relentless down-tuned backing track. Pre-release hype had Peter opining about the record’s speed, and although it’s faster than personal favourite Catch 22, it’s also more complex and progressive – see ‘Incised Before I’ve Ceased’ – Peter’s ghoulishly gothic guitar equations everywhere, and fully headbangable, as on ‘Scrutinized’ and the shockingly catchy ‘Compulsive Psychosis’. There’s a heat-swelled grind to close the album as well, causing the composite of Virus to be all of Peter’s totally unique to him touch(tomb)stones left, right, all accounted for, much more so than on The Arrival. Fact is, no one can create metal as massive and as smothering as Pete and his cast-in-stone contingent, Hypocrisy’s doomed, damned and blessed mandate being the creation of unmaneuverable and near unmoveable stacked cinder blocks of sound, any sense of motion experienced being of a relentlessly and squarely focused panzer-led trudge from bastion A to killing field B.
