Year: 2023
Total Time: 47.06
Label: Nuclear Blast
About three years ago, looking in my record collection and not knowing what I want to listen to, as usual, I pick up the SADUS album “A Vision Of Misery” and I was thinking what a great album they had released back in 1992. I always liked the band for the albums they had released but I had a bitter taste since they hadn’t released new material for many many years, seventeen to be exact since their last release “Out for Blood” which was back to 2006. Time has passed since then and we’ve reached 2023 and we have a new album for SADUS entitled “The Shadow Inside”. Great news for the fans of the band such as me.
American technical Death/Thrashers have released their sixth studio album, which shows both positive and negative elements. Starting with the positives, I’ll say that I’m glad that a band like SADUS is officially present in 2023. Another positive thing is that the band continues playing what it knows better and doesn’t stray from its roots to become more mainstream or more popular to fans of other Metal idioms. Here you will hear pure Thrash with Death Metal touches. Sometimes direct angry and aggressive and other times more technical, with the speeds dropping, but having as a common element traditional Thrash Metal.
Tracks such as “First Blood” (which is also the opening song of the album) or “It’s the Sickness” which cannot go unnoticed with its demonic rhythm, stand out from the album and easily enter my playlist. From the rest of the songs, “Ride The Knife” and the self-titled track that closes the album are deservedly placed near the first two aforementioned songs.
Let’s get to the negatives now. There are not many, but we must mention them. Chatter in some parts of the songs as well as some unnecessarily long solos that, although well played and technically sound, drag on more than they should for this genre. Also, if a couple of filler songs were missing, it might have been better for the overall feeling of the album.
Regardless, SADUS is a band that needs to be in the Thrash/Death Metal scene and we want to hear more of their albums in the future! Darren Travis along with his bandmate Jon Allen still have the fire in them and I don’t think they will stop here. Of course, the absence of Steve Di Giorgio is important, as he cannot be broken into a thousand pieces. The album is of course recommended to SADUS fans as well as to all traditional Thrash Metal lovers!
Rating: 7/10
Editor: Andreas Fytros
Related Link: SADUS – Facebook Page
