Review of the Album "Into the Abyss" by Swedish Death Metal Band Hypocrisy

Into the Abyss is the 2000 studio album by Swedish death metal band Hypocrisy and this one is more electronic and more digitized if that makes any sense. Peter Tagtgren has abandoned his mostly rough vocal style for something more raspy. Songs such as Blinded try to bring across the message of a certain doomsday scenario that time is running out and there is no way to escape an almost certain demise. This is not like Cannibal Corpse and not lyrically extreme but the heaviness and atmospheric feel may give some of us the chills. That same song we just mentioned also has this sort of riffing that the band Arch Enemy would utilize in their music.

Into the Abyss is a departure from the band's earlier releases in the sense that it has more electronic sounding riffing and the vocals are more raspy sounding like the Swedish band Witchery. In the song Legions Descend, there is a riffing part that resembles Cannibal Corpse but it is a bit more modern. Into the Abyss was released at the beginning of this century and I find it hard to believe that we are already more than 20 years into the 21^st century! In 2000, the Swedish metal scene was just coming off of a VERY successful decade in which many melodic death metal masterpieces were released.

At this point, there is not a song by song review of the album but we are getting deep into the significance of the style change for Hypocrisy. “Resurrected” is a song about a demon that has risen again and it is ready to wreck havoc on the Earth. In these early albums of this band, there were these dark lyrical themes but this is definitely not like Mercyful Fate or King Diamond's solo works. As dark sounding as this album is, if you have the patience to sit through and listen to it, there's a good chance that this style change for this band may appeal to you. Into the Abyss can be thought of as not just an electronically influenced death metal album but it is experimental for this band. Early on in their career, Hypocrisy were a group of guys that started with early heavy death metal in albums such as Penetralia and Osculum Obscenum. Then with “The Fourth Dimension” they transitioned into the sort of death metal style that we hear today still to a certain extent. Now with Into the Abyss, this is a more modern death metal album and it works out pretty good still. “Fire in the Sky” is a very catchy song that resembles at least in part to the style we heard in 1994.

1994 was the best year for Hypocrisy as they reached their peak with the classic lineup they had. The symphonic part in this 6^th song shows once again the musical mastery of Swedish death metal bands. They just cannot seem to do anything wrong from a musical perspective and that is one thing avid fans of the genre will always appreciate. Though the lyrical themes are like the first two albums, Into the Abyss offers electronic and technical death metal that works.

The song "Deathrow (No Regrets)" ends this experimental death metal album with a nice atmospheric start as the song is about someone that is on death row and about to die. Into the Abyss is a good sort of change musically for Sweden's Hypocrisy and while it is still not as good of an album as The Fourth Dimension it is still a good death metal album to start the 21^st century.