Hyperdialect
by HACKTIVIST

Question everything. Consider your sources. Be wary of ulterior motives, insidious media narratives and even your own unconscious bias. Trust sparingly and try to make smart, informed choices. As the world slides further into ruin at the behest of old, rich white men ruling with catastrophic, zero-sum thinking, it’s more important than ever to be vigilant and fight back against the forces that be who seem hell-bent on creating a dystopian future for us all.

 

Luckily, Hacktivist are back to help cut through the noise and bullshit, tooled-up and ready to attack with renewed vigour and reinforced ranks. With Jot Maxi and J. Hurley now sharing the vocal and lyrical load, drummer Rich Hawking and bassist Josh Gurner bringing the beats and rhythms, and guitarist and production don James Hewitt fleshing out the group’s genre-fluid muscle, new album Hyperdialect arrives less like a mission statement and more as a flaming musical Molotov, declaring all-out war.

 

“This is gonna flip the game upside down,” J. promises, oozing the kind of battle-hardened confidence that only comes from the strength of surviving through the most testing of times and uncertain circumstances.

 

In 2016, when Hacktivist initially set sights on their enemies with debut album Outside The Box, the world wasn’t fully equipped to heed their warnings and pay attention to its timely rallying cries. They return into a very different one, however – a world that’s sadly now all-too-finely-attuned to the horrors they first forecasted four years ago. In the wake of a global pandemic that has sharpened collective senses and exposed the systematic flaws across society, these should be times primed and ready for the truth-bombs that Hacktivist are about to drop. But recent hardships only amplify the band’s messages – these dispatches from the edge were written way before a virus brought humanity to its knees.

 

 

Jot goes even further than his bandmate on this, reflecting upon what he sees as a world already in the vice-tight grip of a nightmarish dystopia.

 

If all of that sounds grim and miserable, fear not, because Hacktivist aren’t here for unhelpful told-you-sos or sensationalist scaremongering. What use would holding a mirror up to all of this ugliness be if there weren’t some lessons to learned from the reflection, or at least to offer even the faintest glimmers of hope?

 

 

It was with those battle lines clearly drawn and ambitions duly set that Hacktivist entered into the creation of Hyperdialect. Starting almost two years ago and developing on the acerbic sonic filth introduced by 2019 singles ‘Reprogram’ and ‘Dogs Of War’, the five-piece felt fired up by their new working dynamic and the collective process involved, with each member actively encouraged to contribute ideas until the best outcome was reached. Unusually, for such a group of bloody-minded insurrectionists, this democratic approach worked wonders – a testament to how much they were all on the same page on these 12 tracks. Aside from guest spots from rapper Kid Bookie on the monstrous ‘Armoured Cor’e and Betraying The Martyrs’ Aaron Matts lending his vocal talents to the title-track, this was all Hacktivist: no filter, no frills, and no holding back.

 

 

And just who or what exactly are the band anti this time? Jot’s glad you asked.

 

 

Zeroing in on some specifics, Rich identifies the broken electoral systems, the global rise in immorality and accompanying apathy, alongside the growing sense that humanity is losing its grip on what he believes is our “innate empathic, spiritual nature” – points finely illustrated on the explosive trio of wake-up call album finishers ‘Planet Zero’, ‘How Dare You Exist’ and the aforementioned ‘Reprogram’.

 

The recurring message coming through on these missives is clear – the time for action is now, but no matter how fucked everything might feel, all is not lost. It can’t be.

 

 

Right now though, we’re in the midst of that war for our future. We live in a world tearing at the seams thanks to chaos politics where spectacle and disruption trumps policy and progression. We’re at the mercy of a media fuelled by vested interests, financially gagged by greedy moguls who represent the one per cent of the one per cent. When the average citizen will never be privy to the full facts or the truth of anything, yet the man behind the digital curtain knows every one of our dirty little secrets thanks to social media data mining, it’s helpful and instructive to keep an open mind and always be on guard. While suspicion, speculation and conspiracy abounds, it’s difficult to know who or what to listen to. Hacktivist understand these fears and they’ve got your back.

 

“The important thing is to always admit that you just don’t know anything,” reflects Jot, sagely.

“If we recognise the darkness and duress we’re being held under, and the lies we’re being told, we can reject it and seek truth,” adds Rich.

 

That truth is coming soon. Don’t sleep on it this time. After all, when Hyperdialect drops, it may well be one of the few sources you can trust. Forewarned is forearmed.

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