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Anacrusis - Suffering Hour CD (album) cover

SUFFERING HOUR

Anacrusis

 

Progressive Metal

2.45 | 29 ratings

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UMUR
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator
2 stars Suffering Hour is the debut studio album from American progressive metal act Anacrusis. This first album from the group doesnīt really fall under the progressive metal catagory though.

The music is basically thrash metal as it was played by thousands of bands in the mid- to late eighties. Iīm reminded of bands like Kreator, Sodom, Destruction, Xentrix, Heathen, Forbidden, Vio-Lence and and Slayer among others. I really enjoy some of the mentioned bands while others never impressed me much. Anacrusis falls under the latter catagory with Suffering Hour. As such the music is well played and there are even some great thrashy tremolo riffing here and there, but the structure of the songs really gets my excitement down. The songs almost seem like theyīve been thrown together at random with no eye for the overall sound of the music. The vocals also have some lowpoints and here I mean the odd screams that Kenn Nardi sometimes put into his performance. I kind of like his voice though and Iīm sure the singing will improve on later albums.

The musicianship is pretty good even though drummer Mike Owen isnīt the most tight drummer Iīve heard. Maybe itīs due to little studio time.

The production isnīt very good and of course that doesnīt help the music blossom.

Suffering Hour was released in 1988, but it sounds a bit dated. Itīs like they had these songs for a couple of years and when they finally got a record contract they just put out those old songs instead of writing new material that would have been more fitting in 1988. You have to remember that Metallica put out ...And Justice for All in 1988, Slayer put out South of Heaven and Testament released The New Order ( just to mention a few of the biggest thrash metal releases that year) and the compitition was really hard. Compared to the above mentioned released Suffering Hour is blown away. There are elements on Suffering Hour that I enjoy so Iīll rate it 2 stars, but for progressive music lovers ( and even fans of eighties thrash metal) this should hold little to no interest.

UMUR | 2/5 |

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