After a long hiatus, where Peter Tägtgren concentrated on his other band, Pain, his original death metal band Hypocrisy was finally back, and fittingly the tour was dubbed Long Time, No Death…
With them they had brought Survivors Zero from Finland and Drone from Germany who had both done what they could to warm up the large crowd at Markthalle, but now it was time for the band everybody was waiting for; this could be felt as the pressure of people became tenfold in the instant the intro music began playing!

”This is the first night we’re playing in almost four years, so you’ll have to excuse us if we fuck up too much”
- Peter Tägtgren (vocals/guitar)

Starting the set out with two songs off of their latest album, A Taste Of Extreme Divinity, seemed to confuse people though, and it wasn’t until the familiar notes of Fractured Millennium began rolling out of the speakers that the large crowd began to loosen up a bit and let their hair fly.
All in all, the setlist ended up containing three new songs in total, where the rest was a pretty good mix of Hypocrisy’s back catalogue, only skipping the much debated Catch 22 release entirely. Some classics such as the aforementioned Fractured Millennium, Fire In The Sky and Roswell 47 (here cleverly renamed Roswell 666) could of course not be avoided, but other than that the setlist could have held a few more surprises. On the other hand, why complain about a well-tested best of collection?

“Next up is a little love song...”
This was commented by Tägtgren while he was squeezing his chest and introducing the romantically titled song Let The Knife Do The Talking; though what the setlist made up for in quality, the sound of the night certainly did its best to destroy.
Not saying too much, the sound in the front row was God awful! As soon as the bass and bass-drum kicked in, the vocals and guitars were nearly inaudible; actually, the whole thing reminded me of a very bad cell-phone recording! I did hear later on that it sounded a bit better in other places of the room, but this was still definitely the worst sound of the night.
Still, the energy was there and the members, Tägtgren, Mikael Hedlund (bass) and Reidar ‘Horgh’ Horghagen (drums) complimented by a live guitarist known only as Tomas (sorry, I have at this time not been able to find more info on him) did a professional job with giving the crowd a night to remember.

For me, this was not the best Hypocrisy show I have ever attended, the sound was far too annoying for that; but looking away from that one major flaw, it was definitely good to see them back on the road, and I was glad I’d have to chance to see them again the very next day in Berlin.

Setlist:

Valley Of The Damned
Hang Him High
Fractured Millennium
Adjusting The Sun
Eraser
Pleasure Of Molestation / Osculum Obscenum / Penetralia
Apocalypse / The Fourth Dimension
Killing Art
A Coming Race
Let The Knife Do The Talking
Weed Out The Weak
Fire In The Sky
Roswell 47
Warpath
The Final Chapter