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Well, this here is the ninth album by one of the oldest Swedish bands still recording. Peter Tagtgren, owner of the famous Abyss Studios, just keeps plugging away at this stuff, and despite a swing into mallcore territory with the poorly-received "Catch-22", this is a definite Death Metal album.

If Death Metal can be said to have a 'mainstream', then this album would be right smack dab in the middle of it. This is Gothenburg-style melodic DM so by-the-numbers you will swear you have heard these songs before. Not that these songs are bad – mostly they are all right. "The New World" is a bit annoying, and "The Abyss" is pretty boring. But there are some other good bits here, like the excellent "Eraser" and the fun "Slave To The Parasites". The problem here is that the songwriting overall is so prepackaged and safe it can't strike sparks no matter how well produced it is, or how professionally it is played. There is nothing wrong with this album, but there's not much right about it either.

Overall Hypocrisy produce an extremely safe and featureless album, and with the exception of a few good songs, "The Arrival" fails to be exciting or gripping. It's polished and well-done, but has nothing to recommend it over dozens of better albums.