ANACRUSIS

Although the album, as much as its successor SCREAMS AND WHISPERS somewhat smacks of the fatalistic negativity that was dominant in the 90s (remember the grunge phenomenon), and musically originates from thrash metal, it's closest relatives can be found among the progressive death metal like ATHEIST, DEATH, and perhaps even more strikingly the German DARK MILLENNIUM. Also the hard-to-pinpoint VOIVOD and CORONER may be seen as frames of reference.

Still, comparisons belie the fact that ANACRUSIS really struck new ground. Manic Impressions is a combination that is as unlikely as it is successful of melodicity and harsness. Cold, crisp riffing is juxtaposed to the sometimes aching, depressive, mournful, angry or contemplativ vocal melodies of Kenn Nardi, who steals the show here.

The mix is as cold as ice, and I am not certain whether this takes away of the emotional content of the material. or adds to the feeling of alienation that pervades it. You decide! By all means, this album is a killer, and sadly was misunderstood by a lot of people who unsuccessfully tried to pigeon-hole this band.

The bass playes an important role in Anacrusis, and plays more on the foreground than in most other trash metalbands. The effect is amore complex sound. The guitarriffs sounds sometimes a bit naieve, but I like this chaotic sound.

I'm quiet a fan of the sang of Kenn Nardi. He uses his voice in a lot of different styles. Sometimes he uses high screams, low growls, clean sanglines and the most fantastic element is that he changes his way so often. This constantly changing in singing/ shouting / growling effects in a very complex emotional musical element. Understanding it is like understanding a psychophrenic patient. This part of this music is one of the key elements why Anacrusis feels complex.

Another part of the complexity is the constantly changing of heaviness. As I allready sad, Anacrusis is a very dynamic band. It changes from slow riffs to fast riffs and from clean guitars to distortion in very small time periods. This completes the changing of vocalstyls.

Reason is a very entertaining record wich has in my opinions no real weak points, except it's cover. This record is one of the few trash metal record (if not the only) I can listen seven days a weak without getting bored about it. By having sad that I conclude that this is without doubt a masterpiece of trash metal. Because of it's technical highstanding qualities it wouldn't suit ill in a progressive metal collection.

The thin vocals and the guitar riffs says it all, really. This is pretty standard thrash metal and it is not even good. Then again, very few thrash metal albums from that era were good. I get some associations to Slayer's Reign In Blood, but also a lot of associations and bad memories from countless thrash metal albums still in my record collection (packed away well out of view).

This album does not move me at all. The sound is pretty bad too, although not horrible and this album has a distinct lack of good songs too. Avoid.

2 stars

After three crossover hard core/thrash metal albums, Anacrusis settled down on their final album and went for respectability and sophistication.

When a pretty original sounding band seeks mainstream respectability, they normally forfeit their reason for being and their own sound. This album is no exception from this rule. I have never rated Anacrusis at all, but this new matured version of the band is pretty dull. Their mix of AOR, avant-garde and hard core sounds neutured and forced upon them. There is little originality around and even the avant garde stuff here sounds lame. The songs are decent enough and this album is by no means a turkey. Neither is it a good album and I ends this session on a two stars verdict.

2 stars

Anacrusis has returned with some horrendous bad artwork, but with some decent music. Music in the landscape between thrash metal and hard core. This type of music was called Crossover (not to be confused with the ProgArchives genre called Crossover) when I was a young man. Cryptic Slaughter and Anacrusis among the purveyors of this genre. This was back in the early 1990s. Memories, memories, memories.........

The music on this album is pretty decent. It is pretty good when the tempo is slowed down a bit. I find the more faster, chugging guitar riffs pretty uninspiring and dull. Something which there is far too much of on this album. The shrieking vocals too is pretty tiring and not good at all. Well, they wanted to make a crossover album out of it and that is what they have made. There is some good ideas here they have underdeveloped. I can understand why this band does not rate this album and why it has been re-recorded again (I believe).

This is pretty decent crossover, but nothing more. Pass me the salt and pepper please.

2 stars

Nope. Anacrusis does a blend of technical thrash, hardcore and emo metal on this album. The songs here are nothing special. The charm factor is not particular great either. The vocals are a bit special and gives Anacrusis their own identity. The rest of the band is also a tight unit.

The songs on this album seems a bit more worked through and matured than the songs from their first two albums. This album is certainly pretty mellow. The quality though is not particular good and I do not rate this album. Which at the end of the day may be down to personal preferences. This is not an album for me.

2.5 stars

As I've mentioned earlier, this is late 80's thrash metal in the vein of Slayer or Metallica, but this never reaches the high level of quality that those bands reached in the late 80's. First of all, Suffering Hour just isn't as memorable as either of those band's masterpieces. After I finished listening to this album I can only recall a few riffs, and that's always a big problem. I have a very hard time distinguishing all of the songs from each other because of the general lack of variation and memorable sections. There are a few exceptions, but generally it's hard for me to remember every song when I'm done with the album. I wish that the arrangements would have been a bit more varied. There is a limited amount of instruments on this album, and it makes the album feel linear and uninteresting by the end.

The four musicians on this album range in terms of quality. Mike Owen's drumming is pretty good; tight and fast. Not much more I could ask from a thrash metal drummer. The bass is mostly inaudible except for a few quieter parts, and that's a big problem. The two guitarists (Kevin Heidbreder and Kenn Nardi) are pretty great and really show their chops on Suffering Hour. Unfortunately, my biggest issue with this entire album is the vocals. While they aren't terrible, every now and again Kenn Nardi will do an odd, high pitched shriek that I find extremely annoying. Listen to Twisted Cross or and you will know what I mean. It sounds a bit like a dying bird to me. Needless to say it didn't impress me very much. When he sings normally or even goes rougher, he sounds great. It's just those screams that seam to appear in all of the songs that really annoy me.

As I've mentioned, the bass is generally inaudible. This obviously means that the production isn't very good. It's pretty standard for late 80's thrash metal, but I find it insufficient. It really detracts from the overall value.

Conclusion:

Suffering Hour is a rather poor debut from Anacrusis. They have never been one of my favorite thrash metal bands, and this album proves that. This is worth no more than 2 stars. If you're into Anacrusis and/or are a huge fan of early thrash metal, this might be worth getting. Keep in mind, however, that I am a big fan of thrash metal and I don't find much enjoyment from this album.

2 stars.

Anacrusis plays a blend of industrial metal, progressive metal and thrash with some gothic overtones. A mix of Ministry, Metallica, Voivod and Killing Joke if you want to put band names on it. The vocals are mainly hoarse bellows similar to the great Jazz Coleman on Killing Joke's 90's albums, for some reason Kenn Nardi also does occasional extreme raspy screeches. Due to the Jazz Coleman vocals, the steady pace of the music and some psychedelic elements, they also remind me a lot of the more recent band Alchemist, one of my favourite recent metal flavours. Recommended songs to check out are the 3 first standout tracks. Also the weird Division is interesting. The band also sits close to Prong here. 3.5 stars.

The music is thrashy metal/ alternative rock with some progressive elements like occasional symphonic keyboard parts ( very few though). The vocals are both harsh ( not growls) and clean. The music is mostly mid-paced and the faster thrash metal riffing which dominated their previous albums are now almost gone. There are a few times during the albums 62:05 minute long playing time when Anacrusis speed the music up but it´s not very often.

The musicianship is tight and professional and even vocalist Kenn Nardi who I have been complaining about in my reviews of the first three albums now sounds confident enough to deserve his place behind the microphone.

Singer/ Guitarist Kenn Nardi acts as producer on the album and he has made a powerful and very clean metal sound. I really enjoy this production.

If you like albums like Coroner - Grin (1993), Alchemist - Austral Alien (2003), Killing Joke´s early nineties albums ( Extremities, Dirt & Various Repressed Emotions (1990), Pandemonium (1994) and Democracy (1996)) and Morgoth - Feel Sorry for the Fanatic (1996), there´s a chance that you´ll find Screams and Whispers exciting. Many of the elements that those bands have in their music can also be heard on Screams and Whispers. Screams and Whispers is ( for now) the final album from Anacrusis and you can chose to view the album in two ways. Maybe this was the first promising release from a band that had yet to unleash their full potential or maybe this was their best shot and it was for the best that they called it quits when they did. I´m afraid it was the latter and I for one do not mourn the loss of a potentionally excellent future album from the band. Screams and Whispers is a good album though and deserves a 3 star rating. I´m happy for Anacrusis that they at least released one respectable album in their career.

The music has definitely grown since Reason and there are actually parts that I find enjoyable on the album. The style is still technical thrash metal which is very rooted in the eighties version of that genre. Vocalist Kenn Nardi has a very weak and strange vocal style and it hasn´t gotten any better on Manic Impressions. He even tries some clean vocals on the New Model Army Cover song I Love the World and it just doesn´t work. Even though the thrash metal riffing is mostly generic and forgettable there are some powerful sections here and there that saves the album. The acoustic parts that occur in some songs are also good for the diversity but not very impressive in themselves.

The musicianship is very good, but good musicians don´t always make great composers and that ´s exactly the problem with Anacrusis IMO. They might know how to play technically difficult things, but their songs are inconsistent and poorly written.

The production is excellent and because of the great production I almost gave the album more than it deserved.

Out of the first three albums from Anacrusis this one is definitely the most listenable, but that doesn´t make it good in my book. Thrash metal with progressive leanings should actually be right down my alley, but when it´s delivered this weakly I´m not impressed. 2 stars and a recommendation to look elsewhere for technical thrash metal. And don´t let anyone tell you this sounds anything like Voivod. That´s blasphemy to my ears.