Hypnogaja - Partial CD collection

[originally posted June 14th 2024 on cohost]

Today I'd like to talk about some CDs I've had in my collection for pretty much as long as I cared about CDs. These are what at least I consider the 3 canonical Hypnogaja albums (which isn't technically correct but I'll get to that). They're a vaguely nu metal adjacent rock band from LA that I have been a fan of for a very long time. They first got on my radar with the song They Don't Care, which was on the soundtrack of FlatOut: Head On (and Ultimate Carnage), which I played as a teenager.

I don't actually know a ton about this band's history. They started out as a trip hop group around 2000 but eventually started to shift more towards guitars and acoustic drums, which landed them in a phase of their career that I think can fairly be described as nu metal, or crossover rock. Although it is fairly gloomy, it always carries a strong sense of melody and dynamics, perhaps a slightly more "indie" take on Meteora era Linkin Park. During this time their releases are a bit confusing. Their official studio discography seems to be the 2002 album Post-Hypnotic Stress Disorder and the 2003/4 (?, information is contradictory) EP Kill Switch. Material from these two releases (not all of it though) got combined on Bridge to Nowhere, which is one of the CDs you can see on my photo, which appears to be a Germany exclusive release. How Germany got an exclusive release of a relatively unknown LA nu metal band is beyond me, but I'm glad, cause that made it easier for young me to get my hand on these tracks. Also it appears that Bridge to Nowhere came out before Kill Switch, which makes this even more confusing. Then there's also White Label, Vol. 1, which has many of the same tracks than the other releases. No clue what's going on! Anyways, the next proper full length album is 2005's Below Sunset, which is opened by the aforementioned They Don't Care, and also features a cover of Eurythmics' Here Comes the Rain Again, which from what I can tell is their most well known song to this day (oh the fate of being a band primarily known for a cover song). The sound on this album is significantly heavier and darker, but it removes most of the crossover elements that previously made them nu-metal adjacent. This album is still highly varied in sound though, but man, do the guitars get crunchy here at times. In 2007 also came out the compilation (?) Audio from Last Night's Dream, which combines tracks from this and the previous era. But once again, I don't really understand how this release fits into the timeline. In 2009, they dropped their next, and to this day, final full length album, Truth Decay, which is a very ambitious concept album about the end of the world. Musically, it is much softer, more melodic, and leans more into alternative and space rock and consequently also brings back many crossover elements that were largely absent from the previous album. Young me didn't initially like this one much cause I was young and mostly cared about hearing loud guitars, but over the years, I started to love this a lot. It perfectly manages the balancing act that challenges any great alternative rock band of having accessible and catchy songs while still bringing a lot of experimentation to the table, and it has a fantistic sense of conveying the emotion and drama that would naturally come with everything around you collapsing. Afterwards it got pretty quiet around the band, as their lead singer ShyBoy got himself into a pretty prolific and succesful solo career. However, since 2020, they dropped two new singles, so maybe the band isn't dead?

I can't possibly pin down how old I was exactly when I first got into this band. The FlatOut game came out in 2007 when I would have been 11 or 12. I definitely didn't play it right away, but I must have been in my early teens so they were a very early one for me, only very few bands have the great honor of me having been a fan before Hypnogaja. When I played the game and They Don't Care became my favourite songs from it, I asked my dad to get me their CD. Initially, he offered me to buy Below Sunset and Truth Decay on iTunes and then burn the files onto CDs himself, which would be cheaper than buying the original CD, so I could essentially get 2 albums for the price of one. I was happy with that at first, but I quickly had the natural born collector awaken in me, so a bit later I bugged my dad again to buy the original CDs, and I'm very glad I did, because I think if I hadn't gotten them in the early 2010s, I would've been able to get my hands on them anymore. Bridge to Nowhere seems to have a couple copies available for cheap, but Truth Decay today has 3 copies listed across ebay and discogs, and all 3 of them are way over 100€. Meanwhile, Below Sunset doesn't have a single listing anywhere currently. As I've said, I've taken these CDs for granted cause I've had them pretty much all my life, but if I hadn't gottem them as a teenager, these would probably be cryptids for me today. Having a vague sense that they exist, somewhere out there, but with no way to confirm, let alone to get one. Especially with Truth Decay, having the original is very much worth it, cause the artwork is absolutely gorgeous.