A Taste Of Extreme Divinity, one of Hypocrisy’s strongest albums that celebrates its fifteenth anniversary

“Human beings set out to encounter other worlds, other civilizations, without having fully gotten to know their own hidden recesses, their blind alleys, well shafts, dark barricaded doors.”
Stanislaw Lem (Solaris, 1961)

A couple of days ago I was playing A Taste Of Extreme Divinity umpteenth, the eleventh studio album by the Swedes Hypocrisy, one of my favorite extreme metal bands and one of those that have always delivered with flying colors in each of their works. The one we are dealing with today, which is by no means the best known of their career, is the Swedes’ antepenultimate release to date, an album that continues to sound as fresh today as it did when it was released two decades ago.

Hypocrisy has been a band that has always fascinated me, whether for its crazier and more extreme early stage or for its alien, conspiratorial themes or for making death metal a better place with its mix of genres. The fact is that A Taste Of Extreme Divinity went quite unnoticed and few people remember an album as solid as this one that I have in my hands today.

Peter Tägtgren‘s band, which established itself as Hypocrisy in 1991 after becoming known as Seditious between 1988 and 1991, began its journey into pure death metal with the brutal demo Rest In Pain from 1992 and debuted in the studio with the masterful Penetralia in 1992. The following year they released Osculum Obscenum, their second studio album that maintained the same line as their debut but at the same time would be the last album in which Masse Broberg would participate as a vocalist, since in 1994 The Fourth Dimension was released, the first album in which Tägtgren himself was in charge of guitars and vocals along with Mikael Hedlund, bassist, and Lars Szöke on drums.

There is a slight change in style in The Fourth Dimension that could be seen in which they left death metal and satanism aside to implement a more melodic death metal, a genre that was beginning to simmer in some of Europe’s northern countries and that seemed to be being received by younger fans, perhaps somewhat saturated with the raw and direct sound of pure death metal. But it is not until the publication of the great Abducted (1996, Nuclear Blast) that the band does not embrace the genre and definitively departs from its first and differentiated stage with Broberg on vocals.

From this moment on, conspiracy theories, extraterrestrial abductions and visions about the New World Order became a recurring theme in the lyrics of the trio, which has always been led by Tägtgren and Hedlund. During the last stretch of the nineties and the first five years of the new century, they published several very interesting releases, such as their eponymous album from 1999 or the sidereal The Arrival, among other great releases, but always maintaining a high level. of optimal quality and playing with all kinds of experiments that give their albums an exaggerated compositional level. Good old Tägtgren is an extraordinary musician, as well as one of the most reputable music producers.

I could dedicate this article to praising the great Peter Tägtgren for his qualities and so on, but it would be too cumbersome and would lose all meaning, so I’m going to return to the album at hand today. A Taste Of Extreme Divinity is the successor to the entertaining Virus, released in 2005. Here it was time to lower the bar a little in terms of releases and they took some time to compose and polish their next album after the release of Virus, which is still a weak album compared to the rest of their catalog.

Hypocrisy entered Abyss Studios (Ludvika, Sweden) in December 2008 to record A Taste Of Extreme Divinity in a few days and ended up mixing the album there to mastered it at Grangärde’s Black Lounge Studios, although the album would not be released until October 23, 2009, almost a year later through Nuclear Blast. As I have said before, despite being an album that has not enjoyed great popularity, it has great songs like Alive or the brutal Global Domination, songs that the band has rarely performed live and that should have more weight in the band’s setlist.

Yes, there is a great song that is part of the album and that usually has a great role in the setlist, and it is one of the singles from the album for which a video clip was also published. I’m talking about Weed Out The Weak, one of the heaviest and most powerful songs on the album, the kind that hits your head hard and scatters your brains on the floor. Without a doubt, one of the band’s best songs and a perfect letter of introduction for all those who have never entered the world of Hypocrisy.

It is undoubtedly one of the songs that has the most weight on the album and it is undeniable that the lyrics are perfect for the blow that is Weed Out The Weak. Here is a brief example: “Just stab their hearts for nothing, your greedy souls scream in envy. Kill them all, release the anger. Weed out the weak, you don’t need them“. And after all, A Taste Of Extreme Divinity is an enjoyable album because the combination of songs itself is round and because its duration, which is the standard for these melodic death metal albums, is just and necessary. It is not too long nor does it stand out for its brevity, the album lasts 55 minutes and 15 seconds. Of course, it is 55:15 minutes of pure ecstasy and delight.

Another of the great songs that are part of this masterpiece is Tamed (Filled With Fear), a fast and dark song in which they release all their anger and also charge against society, which has dominated us since the dawn of time. Without a doubt, one of my favorites of the entire album. After this we had to wait another four years to be able to enjoy a new chapter of Hypocrisy with End Of Disclosure (2013), which was the latest Hypocrisy album until Worship (2021, Nuclear Blast) came out, but that is another story.