Well, I'm one demo and two albums in, and it's becoming quite apparent that Sadus is one of those bands that has to write the same album in order to stay noticed.  And if I'm wrong, you certainly wouldn't know it from this sophomore effort, because Swallowed in Black sounds EXACTLY THE SAME as their debut, Illusions. Well, that's mostly true.  I'm not sure, but something about the bass feels toned down, like it's slightly adjusted but managed to trigger no real effect.  Because it sounds exactly the same, you may be pleased that the riffage and the heaviness are still on point.  This is in fact, Sadus.  But that can only justify so much.  To me, rewriting the same album with very few new techniques is just being lazy.  It's basically saying, "look at what we can STILL do because we're afraid to try anything new."  And the few little things that are new, like the intro to Good Rid'nz, are typically so quickly disposed of that it actually kind of feels insulting.  Thankfully, this doesn't always happen, with the midtro of Images being a good example of incorporating a somewhat slower tempo and a more intriguing yet monotone composition in the mix.  But once again, it still finds its way back to the same generic thrashing.  The album doesn't have a single song that shows the band focusing on a new direction until the six minute Arise which is the 10th out of 11 songs!  As a result, I am much less excited by the riffs and whatnot that were done so well on the first album.  They're fun for the thrash fan in the long run, but they feel mostly like empty shells, especially since the album's longer.  That which I called "face-melting" when reviewing the debut seems less so.  I know this is a thrash classic, is loved by thrash fans and is even bolded on Rateyourmusic, but I'm gonna be "bold" for a minute and say: I got more out of Kenny G's Duotones.

Even though Holy Terror remains an obscure band throughout most musical and even metal-based communities, the thrashers go crazy over their second and final album, and with excellent reason.  There are a few noteworthy changes between the debut and the sophomore.  First: the production is better.  I find that a bit interesting, considering the lo-fi nature of the previous album's production aged well.  However, it's not QUITE perfect, so it loses the acidic charm of lo-fi metal.  Second: the album is much faster.  The energy of the previous album was easily a saving grace considering that the songwriting didn't stand out, so this excess in energy helps this second piece to reach Kreator levels of energy.  Thirdly, the songwriting is a bit more unpredictable, surprising and sometimes progressive or a little neoclassical.  It seems that the group went through a major stylistic re-evaluation in order to make this album, and it worked out beautifully.  The Immortal Wasteland has a more cinematic and storytelling presence to it than anything that came before, a bit like a power metal song or something by Manilla Road.  In fact, that one song alone can symbolize how far they came since their enjoyable yet generic debut, but we get a three-part song immediately afterwards, almost a la Pink Floyd.  The title track is an absolute pace-changer than challenges out idea of proper songwriting while boasting about the jam-packed nature of the intro while the last 2.5 minutes of manage an actual song that has some amazing riffs, but needs the vocalist's singing to raise the volume a bit.  As well, it finally achieves a little sameyness by the end, which is unfortunate considering how surprising the album was.

So other than these three little gripes, this album would be flawless.  This is one of the most fun, jamming and heavy thrash albums of the 80's, and I'll definitely check it out a second time.

97

Yet another classic built on speed and aggression, once again there's not much in the stylistic department that separates this album from many classic thrashers of that day and age.  With their debut album, Sadus makes a point of raw, untamable, face-melting riffs that walked right out of the radioactive waste bucket.  Some of the songs from their Death to Posers demo make it onto this album with clearer production, which has little-to-no reverb and no noise in the background, being crystal clear without shoving effects in your face.  Major riffage and vulture shrieking, end all be all.  Now how does the composition stack up against the others?  The album is extraordinarily fast-paced, even for thrash, so the band is able to switch tempos like a possessed pocket knife releasing and sheathing its many tools.  But because many of these songs are between 1:40 and 3:00, this often comes at the expense of the songs feeling fully structured, like it's just plain missing verses that somehow got left out by accident.  In other words, this album is a raw exercise in metal energy rather than writing, so it manages to be quite a bit of fun for the thrash band and has aspects that are superbly well put together, but still manages to feel incomplete.

82

Holy Terror is a thrash band that largely goes unnoticed by the metal community because there are so many more classic bands in the scene, especially bands who did more than two albums.  Those in the know may consider the band a thrash essential.  With the debut that started a short-lived career, they already showed that they have some idea of what to do right.  As is the case with most thrash albums of the time, the production is lo-fi in the vein of Ride the Lightning, which both helps and hinders, and aggression is almost purely the name of the game.  There's an undeniable level of skill involved in the speed.  These two elements have a sense of purity about them that makes it a perfect product of the time.  Unfortunately, it also falls into the "generic" category as many bands of the time were trying to attempt these same basic thrash song structures, so the edge of this album can largely be attributed to... the edge.  Most of these songs are basic yet energetic thrashers with an almost perfect noise and reverb factor.  The first attempt at a slower balled happens five songs in, but because it's basically a two-parter, we go back to the typical stuff halfway through the song.  So, while it's one of the thrashiest thrash metals you can find, it's also quite typically written and offers more energy than surprises.

77

A relatively new name on the death metal scene, Mortual hail from Costa Rica and hold true to the legacy of the death metal of the Americas. Being a completely new name to me I went back to their earlier EP to get a feel for the band and found it to be a little bit messy with a poor production that saw the tracks descending into a bit of a quagmire of identical-sounding noisiness. Thankfully on this, their debut full-length, the production issues have been addressed and that has revealed a much more accomplished band than was originally projected. The title alone should be an indicator that, despite hailing from elsewhere in the Americas, we are definitely on Floridian territory here with Morbid Angel obviously being a touchstone. Their sound also incorporates the abyssal, thunderous quality of the likes of Autopsy and, probably more pertinently, Incantation which feels like it actually intensifies the brutality the band serve up.

Opening up with an absolute brute of a track in "Mortuary Rites" Mortual set out their stall in no uncertain terms with the track veering from an almost black metal-ish, lightning fast tempo to an ominously brooding crawl and back again all in the space of five minutes of thunderous riffs and battering drum patterns. I appreciate the variations in pacing and am always up for a drop into a doomy tempo as a respite from the blitzkrieg riffs and machine gun blasts. Guitarist Justin Sánchez Barrantes, aka Justin Corpse, doubles-up as vocalist and possesses an excellent guttural growl that is one of the real highlights of the album for me, his sulphurous belchings drenched in foetid filth.

The riffs are fine but, in truth, there weren't really that many that hit me hard and stuck for long and I would like to hear a few more that rolled around for a while in my head later. The guitar soloing is pretty intense and mercurial and is certainly a strong point, providing a manic energy to what is already a pretty stoked atmosphere. In all honesty though, there isn't anything here we haven't heard many times before, so what you think of the album depends on whether you are happy to hear a band playing a well-established style of metal very well or if you place more emphasis on the search for growth and experimentation in your metal. Me, I am quite at ease listening to a technically adept band with a deep understanding of the genre in which they ply their trade and an album that enhances the legacy of the giants who influenced them.