A Vision of Misery

It's a rare exception when an album refuses to be a product of its time, and while Sadus' 3rd opus "A Vision Of Misery" is quite an enthralling affair, it is not quite something that can be labeled unique, in contrast to their riveting debut and sophomore efforts. Some might attribute to a general trend in death metal away from its high speed thrash roots (thrash metal itself was being stripped of such influences in even more rapid succession), or more specifically to Steve DiGiorgio's stint with Death on "Human", but the move away from traditional Slayer influences as typified in Death's progression from "Scream Bloody Gore" to "Individual Thought Patterns" is on similar display with this album with respect to past offerings, though perhaps not quite as far removed as the former.

To put it bluntly, this album literally sounds like "Human" would have sounded had Sadus recorded it in 1991 instead of Schuldiner and his cohorts. Similar displays of rapid, technical riffing over a slightly more restrained tempo with shorter, controlled bursts of mayhem are the order of the day, complete with the obligatory time meter switches that any John Petrucci fanatic is sure to lap up. Take for example the instrumental breaks on "Machines" which rather unscrupulously mirror the mechanical sounding guitar harmonies heard throughout "Human", more particularly on the Sci-Fi inspired closing songs "Cosmic Sea" and "Vacant Planets", and contrast primarily through a greater amount of bass gymnastics to complement the predictable cacophony of lead guitar passages. Vocalist Darren Travis also does a fairly decent job of avoiding sounding too much like Schuldiner and keeps his voice on the upper range of the shouting spectrum, sounding more maniacal and berserk than guttural and dark.

There is definitely a healthy assortment of high octane brilliance to remind of the largely passed glory of the Bay Area scene of years past. Several key passages of "Through The Eyes Of Greed" and "Slaves To Misery" really play up the chaotic factor, though doing so in a much more rhythmically asymmetrical fashion than the typical fit of Slayer worship. Yet at the same time, the sheer amount of riff activity and systematic avoidance of outright repetition (a common feature of technical bands of any stripe) makes a lot of the shorter songs seem much longer than they actually are. "Throwing Away The Day" literally manages to mash in more than half a dozen contrasting sections into a song that doesn't even break the 4 minute mark, complete with enough auspicious bass work to make Les Claypool blush. Ironically the lone exceptions to the rule of continual contrast are the long songs in "Facelift" and "Echoes Of Forever", both of which take time to play up creepy quiet sections either at their offset or closing that again seem to be drawing influence from the more atmospheric side of "Human".

This is pretty far removed from a traditional death/thrash affair, but then again, Sadus has never really had a very conventional approach to compelling the ruination of spinal columns. By the same token, it definitely shares in the basic trend of death metal with a lot of tinkering around the edges, though not quite crossing into the realm of outright bizarre experimentation after that of Cynic's "Focus". It lacks the raw nastiness of "Illusions (Chemical Exposure)" and the riff frenzied Bay Area-infused assault of "Swallowed In Black", but it retains a sufficient level of old style charm to keep the band's early era target audience in the loop.