THE SANE ASYLUM

1. Les Claypool was the bass player.

2. Larry LaLonde was one of the guitar players.

3. This album is pre-"Primus" material.

4. This is credited as the original thrash-progressive metal album.

5. It was produced by Metallica's Kirk Hammett.

6. It kicks major butt.

With all of this going for it, why hasn't anyone made a bigger deal out of it? The vocals are sung by founder Marc Biedermann who sounds like he would have been your typical progressive metal singer if his voice hadn't already been thrashed. The album has this perfect attitude of being progressive rock's revenge to punk music as it plows under any punk band with an interesting trait, talent. While it has it's weaknesses such as not the best production in the world, it only makes it sound that much more authentic, almost like it was engineered in someone's basement. This really stands out on the track called "Kamikaze", which starts off a bit more mellow (compared to the preceding tracks) and Marc's vocals really suffer here and the mixing problems really show through. Even so, the guitar is brought to the fore, which is great, because you would almost swear you were listening to very early "Metallica" guitar solos at times. But then you get the thrash sound with "faster than the speed of light" drums and killer bass and guitar to match.

Highlights that make this short album worthwhile are the track mentioned above along with "Death Noise", "Vicious Vision" and "Metamorphosis of a Monster", these songs are the most progressive as they wind there way through tempo shifts and meter changes, plus they show that this band was serious about making their crazy metal sound that was many steps above the typical hair-metal/pop-metal sounds that were around at the time. What ended up happening is an album that no one noticed would become the blueprint for future thrash metal and progressive metal bands to come, you know, the ones that are still out there even now.

The things that keep this from being a masterpiece all have to do with the mixing and production. But if you can manage to make your way past this, which is actually not that hard to do if you listen to demos and early punk/thrash music a lot, then you may not even notice this. I really wish the bass and drums were mixed better, then this would have been an essential piece of work for Progressive Metal lovers. However, once you get used to the "lo-fi" mentality of it all, it really begins to grow on you. I really need to listen to the updated versions of this album (one released in 2007 and another in 2015) and see if they are any better, but I have managed to grow used to the sound on this album that I am afraid I will end up missing that more "garage" feeling that I have become used to when listening to this. One of these days, I will find a remastered copy, I'm sure, but I will still keep my original copy, which, by the way, is quite rare now.

Unfortunately, the band would of course lose all of it's original members (except for Marc), and would have a hard time with making another album. It wouldn't be until 2010 before another album would be released, and the whole novelty of it all would be missing, along with the band line up. Sure there are rare demos out there to be found, but this album continues to be the one that needs to be heard, yet it continues to be ignored. With the legacy left behind by this band and this album, it is a shame that it is shunned by so many. Those that appreciate excellent raw talent will be able to see past the bad production and will listen to this excellent album with the respect it deserves. Of course, the longer tracks are the best, but I enjoy it all.

You can't ignore the fact that this album and this band was extremely influential for progressive thrash metal.

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