Album Review: Hyperdialect // Hacktivist

Hacktivist came to my attention when they covered a well-known Jay-Z and Kanye West song. What struck me was a fresh original take on the song because its mix of raw vocals with hard-hitting djent riffs were something I hadn’t heard before.  This was a really interesting combination and they’ve been on my radar ever since. The band have grown bigger over the years, and are due to play at Bloodstock and Slam Dunk.

What blows my mind about this band is that on their new album Hyperdialect is the amount of Meshuggah-inspired riffs that are present on this record. They make for a bruising experience. It’s really hard musically and lyrically. The band touches on deep political subjects and you can hear their anger. For example, on ‘Planet Zero’, it talks about how humans are contributing to the downfall of existence: “Plastic bottles get found by divers / Drastic time we are survivors / Ignore the signs that came back to bite us / Toxic waste spreads like a virus”. The angry guitar in the background matches with the blistering vocal delivery.

There are other examples of this brutality, such as on ‘Dogs of War’ which talks candidly about the Syrian war. Lyrically it hits very hard and you can feel the anger in the vocals. It’s thought-provoking because it paints a brutal picture of what conflict is like. The whole album is angry but beneath this anger is a lot of heavy riffs that in my opinion are up there with the big hitters. Hyperdialect on the whole is a strong consistent album that shows how powerful Hacktivist is.

Words by Ermis Madikopoulos