Catch 22

Apparently this is Hypocrisy's most hated album... I have actually never heard anyone say anything really negative about this album until I saw the reviews here on metal-archives! Before we consign Hypocrisy to the flames, I've been listening to this album since it came out and I think there is more to it than the previous reviews are saying.

"Catch 22" sounds much like "The Arrival" (a much more popular album) but way more attitude and an excellent bass heavy roar sound to it. Some really well composed riffs, like the beginning of "Public Puppet" and "Hatred,"and basically the whole song "Turn the Page." Riff transitions keep the music flowing very well. Drums do nothing too fancy here - rhythms and fills are good and fit very well into the songs, also effectively keeping up the flow.

Having said that, Hypocrisy could definitely use some more brutality here - brutality that has partially shown up on the 2005 album:"Virus." Just now as I went to check what year "Virus" came out in I saw that a new 2008 re-recording of this album (Catch22) is coming out. It looks like that brutality problem I mentioned is about to be solved, or at least as far as the music goes... I think the lyrics could use a bit more brutality too. Instead of one of the most intense songs on the album being "Don't Judge Me" and hearing lines like "I'm sick and tired of people telling me what to be..." we could surely ask for something less tame, but nothing like that is going to change on a re-release. Still, I'm willing to bet this re-release coming out in '08 is going to be as good or better as this original, much underrated version of the album!