Review by Rexorcist for Sadus - Illusions (1988)

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.

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