Anacrusis ‘Suffering Hour’/’Reason’ (Remaster)
Album Review By Adam McCann
Metal Blade Records/Thrash Metal
In the grand scheme of things, each genre has its overrated and underrated bands, but what is often overlooked are the bands that are forgotten. One such band are Anacrusis; the American band caught the tail-end of the thrash metal movement and released a few albums that are now considered ‘lost-gems’ of the genre. This year finally see’s Metal Blade Records re-releasing ‘Suffering Hour’ (1988) and ‘Reason’ (1990), Anacrusis’ first and second album.
With these re-releases, the albums have been given an expanded status, both ‘Suffering Hour’ and ‘Reason’ come packed with bonus tracks; unreleased tracks, B-sides as well as the pre-recording demo tracks that are bound to be coveted by huge fans of Anacrusis. Furthermore, unlike the bands original recordings such as ‘Suffering Hour’ where the original production was muddy and in reality quite poor, have now been given a much needed clean and tidying up; with this remaster managing to improve the sound quality without taking away too much of the raw charm that gave these albums so much enjoyability. Therefore, tracks such as ‘Terrified’, ‘Stop Me’ and the superb ‘Child Inside’ from ‘Reason’, alongside ‘Butcher’s Block’, ‘Frigid Bitch’ and ‘R.O.T. (Reign of Terror)’ from ‘Suffering Hour’ have lost none of the power that they once originally had, having all the progressive likeability and thrashing drive of Voivod, Watchtower and Coroner.
What the listener gets with the remasters of ‘Reason’ and ‘Suffering Hour’ are two albums that have not been given a quick and disposable re-release; instead, what is available is an album which has been given the focus and love that is needed to deliver an album of this status by a record label who go up and beyond to care about the heavy metal genre.
Rating : 81/100
MHF Magazine/Adam McCann
