### Hypocrisy: Inferior devoties

#### 12/11/08 || Daemonomania

Hypocrisy have been around a damn long time, and many moons ago before teh melody crept into their music they were death metal all the way baby. Evil, dripping with menace, old school Swedeath style death metal to be specific.

This EP marks the departure of Masse Broberg’s tremendously demonic vocals, and we all know that fortune and fame awaited him soon afterward. Evil Pete was given his chance to shine. If you’ve listened to a little album called “Nightmares made flesh,” you know the man’s capable of shining like a fucking spotlight. His voice wasn’t quite as developed here, but Sir Rat-tat-tat-tgren still manages to scream and growl pretty nicely.

Other than the vocals, Peter handles the guitars and keyboards – he must have been pretty stressed running around from instrument to instrument. That explains the horrific dark circles under his eyes at all time. Dude needs a massage bigtime. Rounding out the band duties are the sticks and skins of Lars… wait for it… nope not Ullbitch. He handles his job competently and there’s something very enjoyable about his performance, even if it isn’t impressive by today’s (triggered) standards. Think Jensa from Grave. They let him go in 2004 to be replaced with the more brutal Horgh. So much for job security in the world of extreme metal. And then there’s bass, which was actually noticeable in early Hypocrisy. Good job from long-running member Mr. Hedlund. He had to fight every step of the way to avoid his position being outsourced to India.

“Inferior devoties” is a complete failure to spell an EP title correctly. And why would they say they were inferior “devoties” anyway – if you’re going to be devoted to something totally hellish, why not strive to be the best at it? Other than that, achievement all around. The re-recording of the title track is awesome, and I’ll be damned if “God is a lie” and “Mental emotions” aren’t among the classics of Swedish death. Then there’s a Slayer cover, which I tend to skip. Sorry.

This has been tacked on to a lot of different releases, so do yourself a favor and pick one of them up. They will fulfill your craving for “that early ‘90’s sound”. You may not have that craving for two reasons:

1. You just ate White Castle, and crave nothing more than malt liquor and a painful dump.

2. You are a complete dickhead, which may just be a reiteration of reason 1.

7.5 cool little EP’s out of 10.

- Information
- Released: 1994
- Label: Nuclear Blast
- Website: www.hypocrisy.tv
- Band
- Peter Tägtgren: vocals, guitars, keyboards, harmonica
- Mikael Hedlund: bass
- Lars Szöke: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Inferior Devoties
- 02. Symbol Of Baphomet
- 03. Mental Emotions
- 04. God Is A Lie
- 05. Black Magic (Slayer cover)