It may come as no surprise that I am a pretty big Hypocrisy fan. However, I didn’t start out listening to their earlier work until well after high school. I was hung up on the “new” Hypocrisy for a great deal of time, but I felt the need to explore this band even deeper past their self-titled comeback album from 1999. The Fourth Dimension was a departure in the lyrics section to a bit of an extent, going from themes such as anti-religion, to more science fiction and paranormal subject matters, but still keeping the ferocious sound intact.

The album begins very sluggishly with Apocalypse, with slow and simple big riffs complemented by an also a relaxed yet apocalyptic keyboard. The tempo remains at the same pace but has a little bit of clean vocals to mix it up just a tad. Mind Corruption is a more death metal deafening track that focuses more on heavier riffs and hammering drums. This earlier 90s death metal Hypocrisy was something a bit difficult to warm up for me at times, but they still captured a big sound, such as slothfully heavy songs like the Reincarnation that strive for a more melodic feel.

Reborn amplifies the album to more intense levels after the slow-moving start; sounding way more thrash influenced, but still slows down enough to induce some of Peter Tägtgren’s immense riffs. Hypocrisy was maturing with their compositions pretty quickly with this album due to the violent nature of the songs and the great melodic guitar shapes that make up the vast majority of this piece. More importantly, the hefty nature of tracks show a lot of promise, such as Slaughtered, where guitar riffs is big enough in sound to shake your very core.

I’ve come to enjoy new and old Hypocrisy alike in many ways. It’s one of the more interesting discographies to sit down with and witness how they evolved and changed with each passing album. They kept things interesting with The Fourth Dimension combining a great death metal sound with a bit of a melodic touch.