ALBUM: Hypno5e – Acid Mist Tomorrow

From Hypno5e comes the electrifying album Acid Mist Tomorrow. The second album from the French quartet has lyrics floating between French and English, delivering nine tracks that produce a mesmerising and almost trance-like atmosphere.

The first song is title track ‘Acid Mist Tomorrow’, and it eases in the listener with a gentle display of beats, riffs and psychedelic sounds which soon generates into loud guitars and some attacking screams, by Emmanuel Jessua, which fits nicely into the background and does not overpower the rest.

After a hefty ten minute opener, next song ‘Six Fingers In One Hand She Holds The Dawn Part I’ is a short instrumental track, which acts as a reliever, before third song ‘Six Fingers In One Hand She Holds The Dawn Part II’. This starts with heavy drums and melodic rhythms, bound together by Jessua’s vocals, and sure to be an album favourite. The band’s tendency to create chaotic song structures is something they play to their strengths and their potential shines through, if not completely mastered yet.

The next track ‘Story Of The Eye’ is quite haunting, as is ‘Gehenne (Part I)’ with prolonged notes and shivering vocals that erupt into something more when the ferocious ‘Gehenne (Part II)’ starts. ‘Gehenne (Part III)’ completes the small title trilogy with some elegantly spoken vocals that sits on top of a progressive tempo before breaking out into the fortifying screams. The final tracks ‘Brume Unique Obscurit+®(Part 1)’exercises more spoken vocals, and ‘Brume Unique Obscurit+® (Part 2)’ has a much faster pace and more apparent thrashing drums, rounding off Acid Mist Tomorrow.

Hypon5e play to their strengths with this album, expressing a healthy effort of metal with an experimental twist. However, with a tendency to prolong some of the instrumental tracks and monologues, this album drags on a little too long.

There is a lot of potential here and I’m sure the level of creativity they possess will be superbly interpreted into a live show.