Crust

The moderate success of "Tribe" and the break of the line-up made it necessary to introduce changes. To keep Sadist alive, Tommy Talamanca brought Andy Marchini back to the band, and found newer successors in the guise of Trevor Nadir (vocals) and Oinos (drums). This line-up, in 1997 - that is very quickly after the previous album - recorded "Crust"...one of the strangest albums in Sadist's discography. And the strangest reason is that despite the original assumptions, i.e. making the music different, but more accessible and "for people", the band decided to leave in a not-so-digestible hotchpotch.

Unfortunately, in the case of "Crust", there was no imagination for novelties. In many places, the old technique has been replaced by riffing close to groove metal (or even industrial) - heavily cut and dehumanized. Well, it means that the music has become much less colorful, and thus, deprived of any greater multidimensionality. Let the confirmation itself be the fact that the longplay is best perceived where...it refers to its predecessor - rather rarely. Next, I am not entirely convinced by the atmosphere of the disc (schizo-digital), Trevor's vocals (especially the groaned one), sound (illegible - completely unsuited to progressive playing); in a short: majority. "Obsession-Complusion", "The Path", "Holy..." (the style of the previous album sounds the strongest here) or "'Fools' And Dolts" seem nice, but that's roughly it. Seriously, only 4 kind of "nice" songs! - which is a joke compared to the previous albums. In the others, yes, there occur (keyword) some unusual and original patents, but - unfortunately - there is no sense and the former ease in them. Traditionally, Tommy's solos and Andy's bass make a great impression, but these elements, out of spite, don't get as much space as they should have.

An unambiguous assessment of "Crust" is therefore quite problematic. Because, in principle, it's listened to quite well and with interest (especially in the first half), on the other side, this lp has absolutely no approach to its predecessors and weakens in too many moments. It's also evident that changes outside the prog-death stylistics rarely come into anything meaningful in Sadist discography. "Crust" is one of the more emphatic examples.

Originally on: https://subiektywnymetal.blogspot.com/2021/11/sadist-crust-1997.html