Reason

"Maybe I got off on the wrong foot. Maybe my initial negative impression of this band can be attributed simply to not digging deep enough. Maybe they were somewhat better during their earlier years..."

Those were my thoughts on Anacrusis, some time having passed after hearing their last two albums - Manic Impressions and Screams And Whispers. I was in for quite a surprise. Reason, their second album, and the one directly preceding the two mentioned above, is not a good album. However, it is not a bad album. In fact, it boasts a sound that has very unique draws, and it brings with it a degree of memorability, along with a few strengths that are entirely its own. The fundamental flaw of Anacrusis's sound is still there, it was always there, but its good points frequently push it up to a level of quality that is on the cusp of being genuinely good, particularly because of the truly unique sound on display here.

Let me explain. To my knowledge, tech-thrash generally prides itself not just on technique, but on being tight as fuck, with every riff, harmony and arpeggio executed with mathematical precision to achieve this surgical sound that Coroner and Watchtower are known for elevating into an art form. By contrast, this thing is MESSY, very much so, with desperate riffs of many moods and tempos being interspersed with dirty guitar licks, soft balladic sections, whammy bar tricks, and some genuinely bizarre notation (see "Terrified" for an immediate display of what I'm talking about), all while Ken Nardi, misguided amateur that he is, jumps between balladic softness and abhorrent faux-Schuldiner yowls with striking frequency and little regard for maintaining any constant flow or emotion. I believe most of those elements are actually carried over from Suffering Hour, which was produced and structured in a very messy manner, but was otherwise a normal, wild and unrestrained thrash album with fast tempos, brutal lyricism and Slayer-like passages aplenty. There's still a little bit of that here: the sporadic drumming and unrestrained sound of the album are all but carryovers from the debut, but the mood is entirely different, and unlike any other album in the style that I know of.

More on that, the other draw of "Reason" is just what it sounds like. I'm tempted to almost call this a thrash/doom hybrid, with riffs being rhythmically similar to the former, but melodically very bleak and desperate, bearing similar emotional weight to the latter. Most are mid-paced, and a few also manage to have a very mechanical feel with a lot of repeating notes and somewhat plodding rhythms. That last sentence may have you thinking of the words "groove metal", and yeah, it does sound a bit Prong-like in specific bits, but it never chugs, it changes tempo in a way that drives the songs forward, and it compliments the overall feel of the album in a way that works very well. Like I stated previously, "Reason" is a messy album. In spite of its name, it signifies a loss of reason, with riffs having a notable degree of sloppiness to how they're being played, and song constructions changing moods on a whim, having many sections come out of nowhere. Yet with how many elements of it contribute to that feeling of dread and hopelessness, that kinda becomes the appeal of it. This sounds truly original, not just in production or songcraft, but in feel, and I have to begrudgingly give props to Anacrusis for managing to achieve that in a time when thrash had already been pushed to every extreme you can imagine.

You'd think Nardi's vocal technique (or, rather, lack thereof) would be a much better fit for this kind of music, right? That is absolutely correct! ...But no, you're wrong. I've already ranted twice about how much he sucks, and the meat of it is that he fails to properly convey the emotions required by the music, due to poor vocal range, sloppy technique, and outright abrasive vocal stylings. This is still a problem, and largely a "me problem", as I am led to believe. He simply fails to work with the music, as he always comes off as either insincere or physically painful to listen to. More on the words he's saying, however, they are well above average for thrash metal lyrics. In brief: philosophical, poetic social commentary, with a dash of emo that feels rather sincere due to Nardi's choice of words and the music that he's singing over. This is the kind of thing that makes me think "Why not hire a singer and stick solely to rhythm guitar? He's actually pretty damn good at it, at the very least!".

The abovementioned thought actually leads me to a peculiar observation. At times, I can almost pinpoint what, or rather, who he's trying to sound like. This kind of combination of faux-emotional balladic passages, high shrieks and actually intelligent social commentary brings to mind another vocalist - Ray Alder of Fates Warning. A comparison between this album and one like that band's "No Exit" or "Perfect Symmetry" will reveal many similarities in what they're trying to convey to the listener. The main difference is that Alder actually has the technique to accomplish all of this, with a silky smooth tone, excellent vocal range and emotion, resulting in a gorgeous display of bare emotion and power metal screams that's sure to please any fan of Halford or Dickinson. Nardi gives the impression that he's trying, bless his fucking heart, he's trying, but he simply does not have the vocal range or necessary forcefulness in his voice to give a proper performance.

This is all conjecture, but assuming it to be true would explain a whole lot of things about Anacrusis's music and how my ears relate to hearing it. His passable display on Suffering Hour can be contributed to that album's chaotic sound which is simply more in line with Nardi's voice. His... whatever the fuck on Manic Impressions is immensely appalling not just in a vacuum, but because his voice clashes so much with the precise, machine-like tones of the music on there. His overdriven screams are simply a result of him using an improper vocal technique to push himself well beyond the limits of his range. If you read his biography of the band on their official website, he straight up admits that he was (and still is) a very poor singer who forced the band to work around his limitations (to be specific, they had to downtune by very many steps to simply fit within his pisspoor range). Point is, he is still the main limiting factor of the band by an obscene margin.

Now, there are some moments here where he's passable. In "Terrified", he exhibits genuine aggression during the verses, complimenting the frantic drumming and tremolo riffs. His godawful shrieking somehow manages to work - when listening, I really can picture some poor guy frightened out of his wits, running for his life. But still, it is nothing exceptional. I feel like I am praising him for not sucking - and barely, at that. Nay, to be more specific, it makes one think that the music is basically doing Nardi's job for him. This only supports my opinion that "Reason" would be a much better album, were it fronted by a competent vocalist like the aforementioned Alder (that rating at the top would be well into the 80's if such a hypothetical scenario were to ever happen).

This is their only creation that I'd actually want to listen to every now and then, if only for the fact that it actually stands out from the numerous other thrash bands of the time and doesn't completely suck. "Suffering Hour" may be a better album in a vacuum, but it's brought down by not having a unique draw of its own and facing absolutely overwhelming competition from all angles (coming out in the same year as Eternal Nightmare, No Place For Disgrace, Dimension Hatross... yeah, you're screwed). I've already said plenty about the two that followed, and what Ken Nardi has done since is... fuck (treat that as an adjective, it is well earned, I assure you). If you're ever inclined to check out this band for any reason at all, this is the album to find. But remember, this still cannot hold a candle to any respectable thrash outfits. And for those of you looking into the weirder, techier strains of thrash metal, I trust the Unholy Trinity of 1989 (Coroner/Watchtower/Deathrow) has already begun indoctrinating you into their supremely sexy cult, which I am happy to be a part of. Join us, we have riffs and cookies. And more riffs.

The year was 1990, and something had changed within the Anacrusis camp. This wasn't immediately obvious to listeners, but around the time they hit the calm acoustic interlude on "Stop Me", some 2 minutes into the album, it was clear that something was very different. There was definitely nothing like that on Suffering Hour. Anacrusis, it seemed, were treading new ground.

"Stop Me", much like "Present Tense" on the last album, is both the album opener and a decent distillation of the album as a whole. It's a...rather strange song, disjointed, even, but it's also really cool. It's got acoustic interludes, screaming, a really good solo, thoroughly grim lyrics, and a good chorus. It sounds rather like Anacrusis were trying to put as many parts in a song as they could get away with, and that may well have been the case. Still, this ramshackle assortment of disparate sections manages to hold together, and became one of my favorite Anacrusis songs after the few listens it took to wrap my head around it. Most of the previous several sentences apply to the entire album, but it's on Stop Me where this approach works best, making for a truly memorable song that does an amazing job at conveying emotion. It's almost certainly the best song on the album.

Lyrically speaking, Anacrusis show a lot of growth from their last album. There's no more Nazi Germany, no more French Revolution, no more general violence. On this album, they've moved fully into the lyrical themes that they would stick with for the rest of their career, which I can probably best sum up as "things going wrong in the human psyche and reflections on that". On the Anacrusis website, Kenn Nardi calls it "about the confusion and apprehension associated with everyday life", which may be a more apt term. Either way, it was a bit of a change. How many bands go from an album with song titles like "Annihilation Complete-Disemboweled" to an album with song titles like "Afraid to Feel"? For my money, this was by and large a positive lyrical change, but it probably alienated some thrash fans at the time. Later on, Anacrusis would also sometime put a positive spin on said themes, but not so much on Reason, pretty much every song here is unequivocally grim. In a strange sort of way, the lyrical content on this album anticipated the much angstier fare that would enter metal more in late 1990s. Anacrusis were always ahead of the curve, I suppose.

As ever with these guys, the instrumentation is both really good and really clever. The bass on this album is a lot more notable on this album, ("Afraid to Feel" stands out there with a really cool bass intro). The album's a lot more progressive than Suffering Hour was, too. I can't tell what time signatures a large chunk of these songs are in. Sometimes (like in the extremely weird, yet awesome guitar solo on "Misshapen Intent", which may or may not be an unintentional polyrythm), I can't even tell if they mean to be in the time signature they're in. You do sometimes get the sense that Anacrusis' ambitions have outstripped their ability to play some of this stuff at times, but it's generally pretty minor. Kenn Nardi is as good a singer as ever. The eclectic and unpredictable nature of this album meshes perfectly with his own voice here. Nardi's tendency to switch between soft melodic singing and his trademark unhinged screeching is mirrored by the music's tendency to switch between light acoustic passages and breakneck thrashing.

Mike Owen on the drums also deserves some special mention. His performance on Suffering Hour was an impressive display of thrash metal drumming, but his performance here (and his swansong in Anacrusis) is something altogether weirder. Owen still does some normal thrash beats at ridiculous speeds in places, but he also keeps these frenetic fundamentals around for the progressive sections. The result is just about the most unhinged prog drumming I've heard this side of Mekong Delta, as Owen pulls off some thoroughly strange beats in weird time signatures while still spamming his kick pedal like a man possessed. It's unclear if his approach would have worked too well in Anacrusis' later work, but it goes over great on Reason.

Despite all this praise, Reason is definitely imperfect. This is possibly the hardest Anacrusis album to get through in one sitting, for reasons that are hard to describe. I think it ultimately comes down to a lack of structure. The largest flaw of the album, almost paradoxically, is how similar the songs can seem to each other. Despite how it seems, the songs aren't actually too similar to each other. Some, like the surprisingly catchy "Child Inside" are more melodic. Others, like "Terrified" can thrash with the best of them. The key similarity is that pretty much every song on the album is almost aggressively eclectic, mashing styles together to make a thoroughly chaotic final product. None of the final products sound much like each other, but listening to the album as a whole betrays the similar approach taken to all of them. The placement of the tracks also seems somewhat haphazard. The three songs on it I liked most are the opener, and then two consecutive ones near the end. I have to wonder what Anacrusis' rationale was with how they placed the tracks in places (though "Stop Me" was a good choice for an opener). The upshot of all this is that, while tremendously clever and not containing anything I could call filler, Reason can really drag in places.

It says a lot about Anacrusis that this thing is probably their worst album, The first time I listened to it, I couldn't summon many thoughts past "that was really weird". However, the more I listened, the more I liked it. There is a method to the madness here, it just takes a bit of time to unearth. This is only the beginning for Anacrusis going all progressive, but this also represents a peak, in that nothing Anacrusis made after this would be nearly as crazed-sounding. That's the fun thing about transitional albums: sometimes they manage to get the good bits of both their predecessors and their successors. Reason is a thoroughly challenging album, but if you're an open-minded thrash fan, or an open-minded prog fan, give it a listen. You'll find some tremendously creative, and ultimately very rewarding, material.

Highlights: "Stop Me", "Child Inside", "Afraid to Feel"

"Trust! Has abandoned me, long ago...
Stolen! By careful, dishonesty...
I have forgotten how...
I have forgotten how...
I have forgotten how...How to believe..."

We were talking about perfect discographies with a bunch of friends a few months back; ones from which every single album, or an EP (demos, singles, promos and live gigs were not accepted), deserved a perfect score, or a nearly perfect one (95% and above). As we all agreed that we had to exclude dinosaurs like Scorpions, Black Sabbath, and Judas Priest since there was no way one could give 100% to each of their endeavours with the guys having passed through several more or less radical stylistic transformations, not to mention the more or less relevant member recruitments, we turned our attention to acts with a shorter lifespan (three official releases and above, no doubles), both active and extinct.

My suggestions in this train of thought were Martyr (Canada), Theory in Practice, and Anacrusis (everyone had to suggest three bands). Martyr were accepted, albeit with some reservation, as their discography was quite short (three full-lengths only, and nothing else). The Swedes were rejected largely due to this weak EP that had just come out. Anacrusis were also turned down… because of the album reviewed here.

Truth be told, the Anacrusis suggestion was the least sincere cause I don’t like the debut that much; but I knew that the other lads liked it so I thought Anacrusis could slip under the radar. But it didn’t; it didn’t as the others saw no reason why they should like “Reason”, the black sheep in the band’s discography according to them. I would have understood their position if they were some of the metalheads who had started their acquaintance with the Anacrusis roster with the debut in 1988, for whom this effort here may have been quite confusing and inaccessible. But for some who had first heard about the band in the early-90’s through “Manic Impressions” (for me “Screams & Whispers”), like the lot of us, “Reason” should sound like the logical, albeit still unpolished, pavement of the way for the two eventual masterpieces. Most of the Anacrusis fans I know hold the debut quite highly in their estimations, for reasons that still escape me, while the album reviewed here doesn’t fare very well. If the fanbase were expecting the guys to embrace the death metal idea, as there were hints at more brutal ways of execution on the first instalment, then I can possibly understand the resentment, but since neither of the other more aggressive proto-death progenitors (Possessed, Sacrifice, Protector, Messiah, etc.) followed down the death metal path, it beats me why Anacrusis had to take the rap for that…

anyway, we look into this fairly reasonable on all counts recording in order to see what could possibly be the reason for its not very attractive physiognomy: “Stop Me” is a dramatic progressive thrasher Nardi unleashing all its versatile vocal bravado, soaring above a sea of sharp, cold clinical riffs and oases of calm deeply atmospheric balladisms. The dark aura that is very characteristic of the band’s repertoire is greatly established here, but “Terrified” is quick to dissipate it to an extent with its brutal proto-deathy outbursts, a sure leftover from the debut, but served with a more polished veneer and moments of truly dazzling fretwork; Nardi is less restrained here screaming like a demented banshee, toning down his delivery for “Not Forgotten”, even providing a great melodic chorus to perfectly match the sombre, brooding mood of this dispassionate mid-pacer. At this stage the listener can’t help but notice the sterile, mechanical guitar sound predating the one on Meshuggah’s “Contradictions Collapse” by a year, and one that gives the album a cold, alien feel, a possible reason why the fans have been having problems warming up to it. “Wrong” does nothing wrong except that it becomes more technical the guys shredding with the utmost precision, the bass also making a few fine showings in-between the impressive guitar pyrotechnics.

“Silent Crime” delves into serene balladic waters initially, and its more immediate, more direct layout makes it one of the more instantly memorable cuts here, not without the several semi-choruses spat by Nardi. “Misshappen Intent” increases the speed and adds another great chorus Nardi displaying his more lyrical side which works well with the superb intricate guitar histrionics that go through several time and tempo changes. “Afraid to Feel” concentrates on the atmosphere with quiet and more aggressive passages alternating for the creation of this standout progressive thrasher the bass making itself heard more prominently again alongside the precise surgical riffage. “Child Inside” is the next in line speedster which more relaxed, nearly crossover-ish execution makes it stick out easily among the rest of the much more officiant material; not to complain at all as this piece is a most invigorating slab of classic headbanging thrash with the umpteenth nice chorus. “Vital” is a surreal futuristic composition with creepy, also melodic riffs which grow into formidable speedy crescendos in the second half with more heavy shredding drama arriving later to make this number another mandatory listen for the progressive thrash lovers. “Quick to Doubt” is quick to seal this album’s fate as an outstanding achievement in the annals of metal with the final portion of fast, cutting guitars the guys sounding pissed and angry for dessert, seldom pausing for a break from the remorseless moshing melee.

The roots for both “Manic Impressions” and “Screams & Whispers” are here, and it’s not hard at all for one to detect them after just one listen. For those like me who discovered this opus after the next two it was quite interesting to trace the origins of the band’s genius back to a more primal, but almost as compelling state the honing of the weapons on full swing, the band leaving whatever messy, death-prone ideas they had at first far behind. Yes, for the debut fans this album must have come as a cold (literally) shower, but the beginning of the new decade was totally savouring such advanced attempts at song-writing with consideration of the winds of change on the horizon. The guys could have translated their detached, pessimistic approach to the groovy/post-thrashy language without any problems, but kudos should be paid to them for staying true to the classic canons all the way to their retirement from the scene. “Reason” is not quite the triumphant listen into which its two successors were turned to, but comes very close to those high standards, and has an inimitable cold, dark charm of its own, definitely not the one of “a black sheep” of a distinguished, highly reputable family.

Anacrusis' sophomore effort, Reason was released in 1990 and to this day stands as one of the four or five essential progressive thrash releases of all time. The album is less a collection of tracks than one big gloomy, doomy scrapyard of wailing leads and down-tuned thrash riffs, this ashen storm cloud rolling across the plains and sucking up all life around it. Reason is undeniably one of the most esoteric and desolate releases of 1990, and of the thrash movement in general, from the bone-dry production to the frenzied feeling of the riffs and the spirit-poisoned nihilism of the lyrics.

Here we have a much more focused effort than 1988's slipshod and charmingly haphazard Suffering Hour, Anacrusis here sticking to a more narrow range of sounds and vibes and combing the drought-stricken soundscapes within to create the necessary degrees of variance to keep things interesting. The guitar tandem of Nardi and Heidbreder offer up a goodly number of high-yield riffs, from catchy speed (reminiscent of "Fighting Evil" and "Present Tense" from Suffering Hour) to wobbly prog-madness to crushing doom, while the rhythm section of Emery and Smith pound out a plethora of tricky counter-intuitive odd time signatures. The leads, to my ears, fuse the Slayer guitar team of Hanneman and King into one sound, with Jeff's technicality and melody and Kerry's speed and unsettling sense of screws-loose randomness. Main composer Nardi further confuses the issue with big chunks of ambience and positively creepy melodic sections.

The album feels like a Suffering Hour crushed and choked by the weight of the world, this funereal vibe seeming to shroud the decaying corpse of your average headbangable thrash 'em ups. The light-speed open-architecture riffic labyrinths practiced by the likes of Metallica, Coroner, and Destruction here usually take place in a sort of resolute half-time crunch, allowing you to watch the cyclopean relics being built step by blasphemous step rather than zipping by and leaving nothing but smoking tire marks. There's almost a hardcore vibe going on here, thrash riffs played slow, doom riffs played fast, always an unpredictable paradigm shift just as you were starting to get into the groove.

Nardi's vocals have also matured, the man's stock of vocal stylings being thoroughly displayed by album's end, here breaking out the shrieks and shaggy barks as determined by the lyrical content as opposed to simply feeling a bit shiftless and in the mood for a change. On Suffering Hour he did some fine work on the lyrics, but here he comes into his own as one of extreme metal's foremost lunatic poets. Rare is that album that can deal with emotional stagnation, commitment-phobia, homicidal impulse, and self-doubt without sounding like a lecture, but Nardi's unique way with words and confident choices make Reason really stand-out as an album that does difficult lyrical concerns right. You also have to hand it to Nardi for the way he really puts it all on the line on this album, trying on a lot of phrasings and tones that could've been thought of as laughable to a less understanding metal public.

Although Reason is a very much an album that must be listened to front to back to really drain the life out of you and let you appreciate its frigid genius, there are a number of really great individual tracks here. "Wrong" is the album's epic, featuring a lot of wide-open spaces for Nardi to howl his pain and madness (a singularly stark and unnerving performance) and deadly riffs. "Not Forgotten" scores points for its punky bass intro and then gets itself a nice warm cookie for its unhinged vocals and moshing chorus riffery. Those in the mood for (relatively) uncomplicated purely thrash enjoyment should look no further than the Suffering Hour/Among the Living hybrid of "Child Inside", and lyrical connoisseurs will be highly impressed by the gripping and morbidly fascinating "Afraid to Feel".

My personal favourite track from the Reason sessions, "Killing My Mind" was actually not included on the album proper. If it were, I'd rate this album 85%. The song is a self-contained piece of intense and somewhat epic thrash, opening with a leaden doom march scarred and maddened by Nardi's shrieks and gritty low-register exhortations, gradually building into a note-dense mid-tempo bruiser before morphing into the fastest and most lively thrasher on the album. The song moves through a handful of excellent riffs and shreddy solos, constantly ratcheting up the intensity until it boils over like a witches' cauldron before subsiding and declining back into the opening march with now becomes a double-bass propelled outro.

To further dip my toe into the negative end of the pool (the water is about up to my big toe's first knuckle, by the way) the production is extremely blasé and dry. While this does help to contribute to the atmosphere, a more dynamic production might've sustained the barren quality but made the trek down this thorny left-hand path a little less wearying, and pumped a little blood into the occasionally anaemic sound.

In spite of these very slight reservations (one of which is totally unimportant since you can download "Killing My Mind", as well as "Injustice", along with the album proper), Reason is one of the first great metal albums of the 90's, and remains a superb example of this totally underrated band's genius. Few other albums can operate so well on so many levels, regardless of the genre. Here you have an album that is every bit as damning and destructive as the most dead-eyed Alice in Chains or Tool, and every bit as intense and heavy as the best of the thrash underground. I'm begging you, give these guys a chance. Nothing would please me more than a renewal of interest in this sorely missed band of rockers and artists.

Highlights: "Quick to Doubt", "Wrong", "Misshapen Intent"

Wow, these guys definitely went rather downhill on this album. This one just sounds like "assorted thrash parts", as opposed to a real solid album. Especially during the first few songs, there is a total sense of disjointness here. Also, they experiment with too many Stupid Ideas, like a lot of Pantera reject halfthrash riffs, and sometimes the vocals are rather excrementory. Sometimes I swear Ken Nardi sounds like a fucking baby... and if there's one thing that does not belong in thrash metal, it's babies. Worse than silly grindcore drumming - pathetic vocals are bad. This really comes across on songs like "The Child Inside" and "Wrong".

Oh yes, "Wrong" - they really got the title of that one to be appropriate, because this song just goes against everything that's good about thrash. It's an awful song, and in fact the first few are all pretty mediocre. It's odd, but the album gets better as it goes on. "Quick to Doubt" has some nice riffs, as does "Silent Crime", and "Killing My Mind".

But one just has to question what the fuck they were thinking when they wrote songs like "Stop Me" with all the silly interludes that never go anywhere, or "Terrified" that just plods along with only one really good riff, that is quickly forgotten again. As I said before, this is Assorted Thrash Parts. There is no good linkage between the riff ideas - no Dark Angel sense of "where do we go from here". Also, the vocals are just too damn loud in the mix, and the singer is best described as irritating. When he's not bawling like an unsatisfied toddler, he sounds like a stereotypical cartoon villain... "so FREAKING somethingsomething" - (Not Forgotten, 2.21) oh yes, cartoon villains are usually comprehensible.

Also, at times they just seem to be playing out of rhythm... "Injustice" has one of those weird too-tech-to-headbang-to time signatures during the verse - I swear it's not 4/4 and if you attempt to headbang to it, your head will be up when it's supposed to be down, and vice versa, and it just isn't working, folks. It happens during the chorus too.

Eh. This is just a badly executed album. It's chock full of good ideas, and somewhere in there is a good solid 37 minute banger, but it's 64 minutes long and barely keeps my attention. Back to the drawing board, guys.