After having seen the release show of their new album, End Of Disclosure, in Stockholm and their sophomore show in Gothenburg and then letting some time pass, we here at Metalmoments figured it was now time to check back in with Hypocrisy to see how things were going further down the road of their European tour.

For the first time on the tour, they had used a support band which we had heard about before, the Danish thrash metal band Essence, and they had just performed admirably.
If all things would have gone according to plan, it would now have been the time for the second support band to play, Hate from Poland. Sadly, tragedy had struck only two nights prior, and after a successful show in Stuttgart their bass player had died most unexpectedly, and understandably the band had chosen to cancel the rest of the tour. Disregarding for a minute how terrible his own band mates must have felt, I’m also sure this must have been a terrible blow for the other two bands, who chose to keep the show going...

Focusing on the show at hand, I was afraid that Hypocrisy would have a disappointing backing by the audience here in Hamburg due to the very low turn-out there had been while Essence played. That fear was quickly put to shame as the main event of the night was drawing nigh – I hadn’t heard about Markthalle being sold out, but from the looks of it they couldn’t have been far off!
Soon enough the lights went down and the intro music began playing; the setup we were now familiar with, but if my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me I do believe that the intro music had been lengthened compared to the earlier dates on the tour, and the lightshow during this time also seemed a bit more intricate than what I remembered it to be.
When the band came on it was the same deal though, a hard and direct start with the title track of the new album, which was greeted by generous applause and shouts from the audience, followed in turn by the much faster Tales Of Thy Spineless (which video, recorded at the Stockholm show, had by this time been released to the general public). Apart from the sound being slightly muddy in the melodic riff some two and a half minutes into the song, Hypocrisy was sounding exceptionally well this evening, and the performance wasn’t half bad either.
In honour of their fallen comrade, both Mikael Hedlund and Tomas Elofsson were wearing Hate t-shirts, whereas Peter Tägtgren was still using his The Exploited shirt which seems to be his flavour of the moment (the LP version of the latest album also contains a cover version of The Exploited’s They Lie), and peaking behind the large drums of Reidar ‘Horgh’ Horghagen he could be seen wearing a simple black shirt with a white Hypocrisy logo on it. The reason I bring this up is that I had learned that the day before they had all worn Hate shirts, and it surprised me a little that this wasn’t still the case.

“Hamburg, how the fuck are you doing?! We’re still a bit fucked up from what happened the other day, so thanks for the support!”
- Peter Tägtgren (vocals/guitar)

Regardless of the comment above, it was as hard to see on Hypocrisy that something out of the ordinary had just occurred as had been the case with Essence. Ok, so Hedlund seemed a bit more distracted than he usually is, but on the other hand Horgh seemed to have loosened up a bit, and Hypocrisy was in every way delivering yet another power performance, a true mark of the professionals they are.
This of course had a visible effect on the crowd, who in the beginning had shown a lot of enthusiasm between songs, but was mostly reserved to nodding and raising a few arms during them. Just as we had seen it happen in Stockholm and Gothenburg however, as soon as we moved into a more familiar territory with Fractured Millennium, the crowd showed more signs of wanting to play along during the songs as well. A hearty chant was raised together with a room full of devil horns, which when we reached Fire In The Sky was built upon with an even louder sing-along, and when we then moved back through the years with Necronomicon the middle of the hall burst into a wild moshpit, the first one of these this evening worthy of its name!
Here I would like to take the time to correct a mistake I made in one of the earlier reviews – upon closer inspection, The Abyss was never part of any medley a few years back, but regardless of this it was still a delight to hear and it still served its purpose in hanging up the tempo perfectly.

“I love water!”
- Tägtgren (vocals/guitar)

This particular comment garnered a very suspicious eyeing from Elofsson, but was also well founded in the fact that due to the activity both on and off the stage, the heat in Markthalle was reaching alarming levels, and this even though outside it was still the coldest April I ever remember being part of!
Yes, Hypocrisy really had the crowd with them, and even though they weren’t quite as lively as they had been the day the tour started, and that the tour had had an unfortunate episode just recently, they clearly still had a lot to give, and Hamburg was more than happy to receive it all, again putting my initial fear to greater shame for each song that was played.
Apparently, there is no stopping this Swedish death machine, and we can now let them continue on their journey secure in the knowledge that they will surely lay all cities ahead of them in dust.

Setlist:

End Of Disclosure
Tales Of Thy Spineless
Fractured Millennium
Left To Rot
The Eye
The Abyss
Fire In The Sky
Necronomicon
Buried
United We Fall
44 Double Zero
Elastic Inverted Visions
Warpath
Roswell 47
Adjusting The Sun
Eraser