HINDSIGHT: SUFFERING HOUR & REASON REVISITED

"Hindsight: Suffering Hour & Reason Revisited" is the fifth full-length studio album by US, Missouri based thrash/progressive metal act Anacrusis. The album was released through Divebomb Records in February 2011. Anacrusis formed in 1984 and released four full-length studio albums in the period 1988-1993 after which they disbanded. They however reunited in 2009 in their original lineup, but instead of writing new material they opted to re-record the material from their first two albums, "Suffering Hour" (1988) and "Reason" (1990) and the "Apocalypse" track from their 1986 "Annihilation Complete" demo and released the material as "Hindsight: Suffering Hour & Reason Revisited".

The early Anacrusis albums didn´t feature the most well sounding production jobs, and it´s probably why the band opted to re-record the material and present it with a more professional sounding production. Stylistically the material from "Suffering Hour" (1988) and the "Apocalypse" track are pretty raw and aggressive thrash metal bordering technical thrash metal, while the material on "Reason" is full-on technical thrash metal with progressive metal leanings. Lead vocalist/guitarist Kenn Nardi has a raw thrash metal voice and occasionally also delivers a high pitched piercing scream. He sings some clean vocals, but they mostly occur on the material from "Reason".

Nardi is credited for producing, engineering, and mixing "Hindsight: Suffering Hour & Reason Revisited" and it´s a relatively well produced release. I´m not sure about the whole re-recording idea though. While the first two albums arguably could have prospered from better sounding production values, there is still some charm to the gritty and unpolished nature of the original recordings, which you don´t get here. On the other hand some of the worst production errors on the original recordings have been corrected here. All clean/acoustic guitar parts for example sound good on "Hindsight: Suffering Hour & Reason Revisited", which they didn´t on the original recordings, and the clean vocals are also better sounding here than they were on the original recordings. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives).