Hypocrisy : " Worship"

The 90s never left. This is the vibe I get from the first album in over a decade from one of Sweden's best death metal acts. I first got into them back in 1994 with the 'Fourth Dimension" album. They were ahead of the curve when it came to lyrics dealing with alien conspiracies. Satan no longer has danger in 2021, but sing about what is really going on and people get scared, and scared is the feeling metal should invoke. While the title track that opens the album is pretty cool, the grooves keep getting better on the more head banging "Chemical Whore", Which is about the phramacuetical industry which is way scarier than Cannibal Corpse's more recent output. 'Greedy Bastards' is more straight forward and more thrashy in both lyrical and musical context.  "Dead World" digs deeper into what is going on in the world today and the music is as gripping as the lyrics.

'We're the Walking" offers a bleaker look at where the world is at.  It is more deliberate in its stomp and more about the song than being aggressive. "Brother Hood of the Serpent" feels like a more melodic version of Morbid Angel, though the vocals have more of a touch of black metal in their higher pitched scream.  I like the cleaner guitar tones on "Children of the Gray" they are creepy almost like Slayer's serial killer love songs. The vocals are more commanding.  "Another Day' is the first song that strikes me as your run of the mill color by numbers death metal, "They Will Arrive" has more groove to it so it works better as a song as there is more to latch onto. "Bug in a Net" gets both darker and more melodic. The lyrics are great, and one thing about this album is vocals have a purpose. It almost comes close to low Type ONegative singing.

The last song focuses more on the groove of the riff, with his growl still conveying the lyrics but falling in the places you would expect death metal to adhere to rather than do their own thing as we have heard earlier in the album. Even then their experience as song writers prevails and makes this better than what a younger band eager to prove how heavy they are would do. I will certainly give this album a 9.5, lyrically it is very fitting for the past year so wish it had come out earlier but will take it, 

9.6