Quick question: what do these albums have in common?
- Hail of Bullets - Of Frost and War
- Pestilence - Resurrection Macabre
- Seance - Awakening of the Go
They're all comeback albums by notable bands that tried to both (a) be what these bands once were, and (b) "update" their style to the "new" recombination of older styles that some call modern death metal, and I call metalcore because it's modern hardcore with a few metal riffs thrown in.
Unfortunately, Hypocrisy has joined the pack of fail with its latest, <i>A Taste of Extreme Divinity</i>. Like most things that rank appearance over content, it has a formula which is designed to wow you with its slick style so that you fail to notice it's a collection of random riffs that sound good if you're not paying attention to the rest of the song.
Here's the recipe: Fast melodic riff, then a doubletime stomp, then a breakdown with a Gothenburg riff, than nu-hardcore style rant and blast; repeat in random order. Add rattletrap triggered drumming that overplays its technique every time, and wrap the whole thing in semi-synthesized "digital whisper" vocals.
On the surface, it sounds like really angry pneumatic metal. If you analyze how it's composed, it sounds like a punk hardcore band trying to be metal.
Don't let the melodic death metal riffs fool you: nothing on this album is as structured or complex as real death metal. It's verse/chorus with random riffs thrown in, like a more intense version of Jawbreaker.
In other words, it's metalcore.
Metalcore is what happens when metal bands run out of ideas. They think: "Wouldn't it be nice to be able to toss off songs like a punk band?" And then they realize they can do that: write a punk song, wrap it in metal riffs, ignore that in contrast to death metal they do not convey meaning by their order, but are sort of a glorified verse/chorus songwriting style where you want a radical distance between the two so that people get the illusion of motion.
The oldest con in the world is mixing some even older stuff into the old, repackaging it and calling it new. "That coffee isn't rotting, it's our new ultra-cool innovative type of deep fermented roast."
That's what this album is: metalcore, and not even particularly distinctive metalcore, from a band that should know better.
Hypocrisy - A Taste Of Extreme Divinity (2009) - Weed Out The Weak
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