Hate Gallery
Viva La Resistance

The second album by the British/Swedish band Hate Gallery sees the light of day early 2012 if you are a guy with the same flag as this review is published under, if you live in Scandinavia it is already released. It is an album that according to singer and writer Janne Jarvis would never had been done if we were living in a perfect world. “To set music to subjects impossible to ignore anymore and to do it as one of the worlds’s most competent rock bands was our damn duty” says the same Jarvis in the info sheet that followed this album (translated from the Swedish translation of the same quote so it might be a little bit off from the original quote). That subject which we will look even deeper into along with some other stuff in our upcoming article about Hate Gallery that is based on an interview I did with Janne Jarvis just recently. It would appear that he and I have a lot more in common than I thought when I tried to think of things to ask him, the fear of the Orwellian world in which we live is one such thing.

The album lyrics is and subsequently also the music is centred around the subject of our decreasing freedom, how dark forces in our society keeps eroding that freedom we cherish so much, or do we? after all, many of us are freely giving up all information about ourselves, of where we live, what we do, our opinions to anyone interested in buying that information. At least one global company has made this into their business, to sell information about people to advertisers or whoever might be interested and it is a multi-billion dollar business. So are you one of those who likes your opinion registered? Chances are that someone has already bought that information from your Facebook account, don’t believe me? then answer me how Facebook make all that money. Ads? Not really, the google ads and similar ads you see pay very little, believe me, they hardly cover the cost of running this website then how much do you think they pay on Facebook? Not enough for that kind of money but coupled with the right information that Facebook have sold these ads can be made personal which some of you might think is great and it possibly is good, but not only advertisers might buy your information. Governments and criminal organisations might and from what many reveal on such places there is enough information for me, or anyone else who knows how to use it to assume your identity, steal all your money, take over all buildings and vehicles you own and then have you arrested for illegal possession, and that is just one possible scenario that information taken from monitoring what you do on internet, what you say on the phone, your text messages, and the credit card history can be used for. Believe me there is much more that this information that is so easily gathered can be used for. And before you think of me as paranoid, buy something in the store I own and pay by credit card and I can ten years later say exactly what you bought without even knowing who you are when you make the purchase.

Well, that was long, the music of this album can be said to be derived from the punk rock in that it is not really riff based but rather built from a punk rock foundation. It is heavy rock music with a lot of aggression and anger towards what I was just saying earlier, maybe not that exact things but that which I mention and that which are sung about are linked together. The message is however not preached in a punk rock fashion so that they dominate the picture and there is no escaping it, it is there for you to see but if you want to ignore it and remain ignorant it is easy to do so. There is a decent variation through the songs, the aggression and anger seems to be mostly there though sometimes more and sometimes less apparent. The album has eleven tracks and it plays for 54 minutes during which you are subjected to sick Orwellian dreams and a lot of other interesting stuff that might actually lead you in the direction of questioning what is done to the freedom of our people.

“We are the dead…” is an Orwell quote you find as you open the convolute and that should suggest to you what it is all about. As I like these political works by Orwell like Animal Farm and 1984 it is apparent that it is quite easy for me to get lost in this subject but it is a subject that has to be lifted, integrity is not just a word criminals use it is something that is a basic building block of a free society and the more we are being watched, the less freedom we have. Sure you say that he who has nothing to hide does not mind, but what if society’s ideals suddenly starts differing from yours and the heterosexual norm culture is seen as something bad and you will be punished if you practise it. Will you become a homosexual then to avoid errors and embrace that culture (and the other way round for you who differ slightly from the hetero norm)? Anyway I like not only the message of this album, the songs are really good as well, the energy, the anger and the passion with which the songs are being performed is just brilliant and this is clearly one of the top albums of the year. It is not the best because it cannot beat the masterpiece by Dream Theater but it may well be the most important.

I think the title track, the second track called The Warning and track eight called Domination Soul are the top three tracks on the album but that does not say that the rest of the tracks aren’t great as well, the unique feel of the sound, the great melodies and choruses makes this album stand out in the rock music crowd and although Janne Jarvis may not want to call it a political album and neither does he want to preach a message to people, it still becomes a rather political album in that it deals with matters that are political but they are also practised by businesses and other things, and these are really subject matters that raises questions. Is it really okay that our opinions are being sold? Most of you today seem to answer that it is, but if opinions and things we share that we do in life is okay to sell to advertisers and governments, is surveillance okay, cameras in the home? Is it okay that the government can demand to look at your browsing history on the internet? your ISP has to give it up if governments wants it so you are not protected there. Where do we draw the line, when has it gone too far? These are questions this album should raise, I already had those questions so this album just gave me a chance to write it out on this website.

It is according to Janne Jarvis an album you have to get, and get it by any means necessary he say, steal it if you have to (this is Janne’s words not mine). And I would say that it is a musically brilliant album that also has a message making it the probably most important album of the year, I will not recommend you to steal it but when you buy it do buy it from a store in cash so that the government and the dark evil forces in our society doesn’t realise that you know and do avoid the surveillance cameras when you do.
Remember: Big brother is watching you!