My first encounter with the St. Louis based Anacrusis was with their 3rd album Manic Impressions, which I purchased real time. It quickly became a personal favorite, and I look forward to telling that story some day. Within the next 2 years I also picked up their 4th and final album Screams and Whispers, while also finding their debut Suffering Hour on LP at a St. Louis record store. This chronology is important, as while I loved their 3rd and 4th, I really couldn't deal with the raw and pseudo-deathy Suffering Hour (an apt title BTW). In fact, it's one of only a handful of metal LPs I've sold in the last few years, as the final listen continued to leave me cold. So I never did hear the album "in between", as I was never quite sure which side of the aisle it would sit in. The scant reviews were never definitive enough for me to pursue in earnest. 28 years later, I finally gave in to that curiosity. That album, of course, is Reason.
Without a doubt, Reason is a departure from the debut and lays the groundwork for their masterwork Manic Impressions. There are a couple of places where they lose their mind, and go blast-beat guitar-solos million-miles-an-hour, but for the most part Reason has that same yin / yang approach that make Anacrusis so fascinating. It's my kind of inventive thrash with seemingly unrelated riffs coming at you at various angles. Kenn Nardi's schizophrenic vocals, at once soft and calm, at others shrieking like a mad man, continue to fascinate. Turns out that The Cure was one of their primary influences at the time, which may explain its dual personality. Anacrusis is a band you do not want to have as background music while doing other things. You will be annoyed if approaching the music that way. They require your full attention. But you will be greatly rewarded. As with all albums like this, I'll need more time to absorb it, but it's likely to only grow in stature. Essential for fans of that odd strain of progressive thrash that existed in the late 80s and early 90s.
Ownership: CD: 2019 Metal Blade. Recent online acquisition. Digi-pak with lyrics and photos. No liner notes, which is a bummer. Part of an Anacrusis reissue campaign, that includes 2 LP sets of course. Apparently the band is getting back together again. That should prove to be interesting. Reason was not originally pressed on LP here in the States (only the UK), with Metal Blade only issuing a CD - with an atrocious cover - not sure why they didn't use the original, which they rectified on this reissue. I was still mostly an LP-only guy in 1990, so that probably explains why I didn't discover them until a year later.
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