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Hypocrisy is one of those high profile bands that I never really checked out, save for a few songs a few years ago just before they went somewhat nu-puke on us. I was agreeably surprised when I heard this new album. A Taste of Extreme Divinity presents a great mix of Melodic Death Metal and real Death Metal, giving the listener an earful of heavy, powerful Death Metal with fucking crunchy riffs (I found myself rewinding a few times just to hear some guitar parts over and over) and thunderous drumming, intermingled with 2000-style Melodic Death Metal – no frills, just the way it used to be before the gates opened and the scene was flooded.

I must say I prefer the Death Metal parts over the rest – these guys should think about heading that way in the future, as the material on display here is very cool, while the Melodic Death Metal stuff is good, but kind of generic and can even get a little annoying at times, sounding a little too "happy" – the more aggressive stuff really takes the cake on this album and anything else can be distracting. The songs are all good, but would sometimes have been better as a full-on Death Metal assault rather than a hybrid of the two. Add an excellent production job (no surprise here), and A Taste of Extreme Divinity turns into quite an addictive slab of the two brands of Swedish Death Metal.