Artist: Anacrusis
Album: Manic Impressions (‘06 Remix)
Release: 2006
Album: Manic Impressions (‘06 Remix)
Release: 2006
Label: Self Released
Tracklist:
1. Paint A Picture
2 I Love The World
3. Something Real
4. Dream Again
5. Explained Away
6. Still Black
7. What You Became
8. Our Reunion
9. Idle Hours
10. Far Too Long
11. Tools of Separation (Bonus)
St. Louis’ Anacrusis were a band that put the progress in the “progressive” descriptor. They began as young rubes playing pretty paint-by-numbers thrash metal and, with the continued addition of melody, musicianship and a variety of influences, ended their career as a truly unique entity, albeit an all-too-unsung one.
If you’ve read my posts on the site, you may notice that while I dig a lot of technical bands, I’m really big on strong songs. Anacrusis absolutely nail this-- there are hooks everywhere, memorable choruses, and excellent structure throughout. While the band do have a certain “coldness” to their production, frontman Ken Nardi makes sure that they still retain soul, and lots of it. Over the B-tuned guitars and powerful drums, his vocals change from a growly shriek to earnest melody and many points in between, sometimes all within a verse. Their cover of New Model Army’s “I Love The World” was as close to a calling card as they got, but it blends so well with the tone and style of the rest of the record that you’d never notice it wasn’t an original composition without researching or being a fan of NMA in the first place. Elsewhere lurks the chunky groove of “Still Black,” the soaring “Dream Again,” (whose second solo initially resembles the Mario jump sound! Ha!) and the contemplative “Our Reunion.” Even the admittedly tacked on demo of follow-up and final album Screams and Whispers song “Tools of Separation” doesn’t sound out of place here-- that’s how consistent the band’s sound was.
This record might take some initial getting used to-- I know it did for me-- but I think it’ll be worth it in the end. OPEN YOUR MIIIIIIND.
Props to Ken for properly remastering his own record so well (the original sounded like ass, apparently), and adding in the handful of parts Metal Blade Records chopped out from the original studio DAT tapes.
Download Here
-Asa
Tracklist:
1. Paint A Picture
2 I Love The World
3. Something Real
4. Dream Again
5. Explained Away
6. Still Black
7. What You Became
8. Our Reunion
9. Idle Hours
10. Far Too Long
11. Tools of Separation (Bonus)
St. Louis’ Anacrusis were a band that put the progress in the “progressive” descriptor. They began as young rubes playing pretty paint-by-numbers thrash metal and, with the continued addition of melody, musicianship and a variety of influences, ended their career as a truly unique entity, albeit an all-too-unsung one.
If you’ve read my posts on the site, you may notice that while I dig a lot of technical bands, I’m really big on strong songs. Anacrusis absolutely nail this-- there are hooks everywhere, memorable choruses, and excellent structure throughout. While the band do have a certain “coldness” to their production, frontman Ken Nardi makes sure that they still retain soul, and lots of it. Over the B-tuned guitars and powerful drums, his vocals change from a growly shriek to earnest melody and many points in between, sometimes all within a verse. Their cover of New Model Army’s “I Love The World” was as close to a calling card as they got, but it blends so well with the tone and style of the rest of the record that you’d never notice it wasn’t an original composition without researching or being a fan of NMA in the first place. Elsewhere lurks the chunky groove of “Still Black,” the soaring “Dream Again,” (whose second solo initially resembles the Mario jump sound! Ha!) and the contemplative “Our Reunion.” Even the admittedly tacked on demo of follow-up and final album Screams and Whispers song “Tools of Separation” doesn’t sound out of place here-- that’s how consistent the band’s sound was.
This record might take some initial getting used to-- I know it did for me-- but I think it’ll be worth it in the end. OPEN YOUR MIIIIIIND.
Props to Ken for properly remastering his own record so well (the original sounded like ass, apparently), and adding in the handful of parts Metal Blade Records chopped out from the original studio DAT tapes.
Download Here
-Asa
2 comments:
Thank you so much for posting this. The only people I have ever really talked about this band with are the guys from Dysrhythmia and Gordon and Adam from Escape Artist/Relapse -- and we all LOVED this band.
I can't tell you how much this band meant to me and like Christie Front Drive a few years later, I became really immersed in this band and only months later do they break up. I saw the video for "Sound the Alarm" in 1993 at about 1:40am -- probably around July or August. The hooks were what got me. There was this combination of anger and sentimentality where one did not manage to betray the other. I got that album on cassette (along with Sacred Reich's Independent and Slayer's South of Heaven on Labor Day weekend of 1993). I listened to it until it must be close to being worn out. I picked up Manic Impressions a few months later. I was quite taken with it -- especially the NMA cover. Also, consider that I got this record within the same month as Sepultura's Chaos AD which also contained a NMA cover.
I picked up a copy of Reason in the used bin, but it didn't have the same power or edge that the later two had. I wonder if MetalBlade would have signed them had their later sound came earlier. St Louis, to my knowledge, never had much of a scene for that so that may have contributed to the demise at their peak. Thanks for posting this, Asa.
"There was this combination of anger and sentimentality where one did not manage to betray the other."
You nailed it, dude! This is a huge part of the magic of this record, as well as Screams and Whispers, I think. I appreciate your appreciation, and wish (as I'm sure you do) I could see the reformed lineup someday.
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