Live Review: Hypocrisy - Academy 2, Manchester
1st May 2026
Support: Vreid, Vomitory
Words: Dan Barnes
Photos: Rich Price
For the second consecutive night, Manchester’s Academy complex hosts an Incineration Festival warm-up show. Last night we witnessed Dragged Into Sunlight draining all hope from the basement, replacing it with a resounding sense of despair while, this evening, we’re up in the loftier environs of Academy 2 for a Scandinavian masterclass in Death Metal from some of that area’s current most accomplished exponents.
Rising from the ashes of Black Metal band Windir, following the tragic death of frontman, Valfar, Vreid have a long recording history of ten full-length albums, dating back to 2004. Tonight’s short opening set is limited to a mere half-a-dozen songs, but the band take Manchester on whistle-stop tour of their output since the beginning. Opening with Milorg’s Speak Goddamnit it’s plain that although the pagan fire of the Windir days may have passed, the essence of Black Metal still burns in the band’s dark hearts. More Black n’ Roll than pure evil, Pitch Black is littered with classic rock motifs and those carry over into the couple of tracks from this year’s The Skies Turn Black album.
Bassist Jarle Kvåle dedicates the title track to the Prince of Darkness himself – no, not Mandleson - but Ozzy, acknowledging Birmingham is about seventy miles south of here, but, hey – distance is relative. In contrast to Skies…’ clean guitar tones, there’s a grim and dirty feel to Into the Mountains, not as frostbitten as the standard BM tune, but certainly chilly, with some added folk elements. Ending with Lifehunger’s title tune, Vreid leave Manchester wanting more.
It’s a rare appearance in this part of the world for Swedes Vomitory who were last in town opening for Vader a few years back down at the Rebellion Bar. Making hay with the classic Swedish Death Metal sound is like shooting fish in a barrel tonight as there is a palpable hunger here for just such a thing. Another band with a ten-album discography, the band aim to please by visiting seven of those records in what feels like a victory parade. Revelation Nausea’s title track opens the account, showing Vomitory aren’t just here to promote a new album, and it shows the feral attitude the band had back in 2001. Another title track, this time Terror, Brutalise, Sodomize, hits next with rapid riffing, punchy percussion and animalistic barks: it’s Death Metal at its most primal.
For Gore and Country and Wrath Unbound, from this year’s In Death Throes album, demonstrate the energy and fire still rages, but do I hear a little bit of groove in there? I think I do. The stage lights go green for Rage of Honour, dedicated to Chuck Norris (R.I.P.), it’s suitably fast and furious and comes with not-so-hidden danger, and it’s here that the core of Vomitory’s sound can be heard, writ-large in the works of their fellow countrymen, who forged that idiosyncratic Swedish Death Metal sound; bands like Grave, Dismember and Unleashed and, of course, Entombed.
All Heads are Gonna Roll is a gut-punch of a tune, with a substantial low end, Opus Mortis VIII’s Regorge in the Morgue flies along with scant regard for public safety and the band seem to be purring like a perfectly tuned engine when Chaos Fury brings it all to an end in a fittingly frantic fashion.
Fellow Swedes Hypocrisy have brought all the bells and whistles with them for this warm-up show, as tomorrow – or today as write – the band will be headlining the Electric Ballroom stage at London’s Incineration Festival. Tonight is an opportunity to test the screens on the UK’s electrical supply before tomorrow. If Incineration gets anything like we did, they’re in for a real treat. As seems to be the order of the day, Hypocrisy construct their set from the band’s extensive back-catalogue, visiting nine of their thirteen full-lengths along the way.
They Will Arrive and Fire in the Sky get things going and cement Hypocrisy’s ongoing fascination with aliens and science fiction. After Vomitory’s old school assault, Peter Tägtgren and company’s more melodic approach feels appropriate. Orange light washes the stage making it appear ablaze. “We’ve got some old shit and some new shit… and some shit in between” announces Peter before Inferior Devoties’ stomping groove; Chemical Whore has a doomy pacing and a Matrix-green lighting scheme, as Carved Up features former Sanctification six-stringer, Tomas Elfsson, wringing tortured screams from his instrument.
Worth the admission price alone is Worship’s Children of the Grey’s progressive strings and atmospheric arrangement, supplemented by screens showing grey aliens, it’s the kind of moment that reminds you of the transcendental effect of music. By contrast, Hypocrisy follow that up with End of Disclosure and Killing Art, both of which snap and snarl like angry beasts
There are times when I can’t help but think Hypocrisy and Kreator were separated at birth, and Eraser, with its pumping rhythms, is one of those times; Deathrow (No Regrets) has an undertone of a European art film from the Sixties, just a whisper, but the haunting refrain lends it a mournful countenance. The combination of Adjusting the Sun’s frenzied charge and Maiden-esque guitar passages, and Fractured Millenium’s choral, classical core show the band always have had the chops to fire off in whatever direction they saw fit. The evening draws to its close with the bolt-action Warpath and the anthemic Roswell 47, latter-era Hypocrisy’s signature tune.
The whole bill now moves down to that-there London and tonight will be repeated, but with Dragging Into Sunlight sitting between Vomitory and Hypocrisy. On a show that also includes Grave, Tomb Mold, Internal Bleeding, Plague Pit and Vacuous, not to mention the Bathory tribute show that is Blood Fire Death, I’m not at all jealous I’m here writing this rather than being down there.
No, not jealous at all.
Photo Credits: Rich Price Photography
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