Sadus: Swallowed in Black (1990)
For their second album (and first for Roadrunner Records), 1990's Swallowed in Black, deathly-thrashers Sadus decided to chill out a little, take it easy, and tone down some of their rampant speed and aggression.
Fact is, for any but the most perceptive of metal-heads, Swallowed in Black raged with seemingly endless amounts of hate and hostility, as blazing opener "Black," the riff-tastic "Last Abide," and hardcore-short "In Your Face" tried to break a few land-speed records.
But the Bay Area quartet also injected greater technical complexity and dynamics into the extended tour de force of "Arise" and slow, atmospheric build-up to "Man Infestation," while guitarists Darren Travis and Rob Moore intertwined tentatively melodic figures into their reliably manic leads.
The primary quality that remained status quo as compared to Sadus' 1988 debut, Illusions (a.k.a. Chemical Exposure), was the way in which the group balanced their sound on a knife's edge between thrash and death metal.
To wit: the older style's hallmark staccato assault and Jon Allen's abundant double bass-drums still drove tracks like "The Wake" and the Exodus-like "Powers of Hate," but slower tempos and Travis' crusty vocals earned Sadus a place in the new metallic order.
And even though he'd been done no favors on the band's poorly produced first effort, here, fretless bassist extraordinaire Steve DiGiorgio started to stake his claim among heavy metal's most accomplished four-string stylists.
With his dextrous, intricate contributions throughout, but especially in "Good Rid'nz" and "Oracle of Obmission," DiGiorgio effectively built the resume that would make him an in-demand extreme metal session ace for Testament, Death, Control Denied, and countless other bands.
As for Sadus, they had one more full-length ahead of them ('92's A Vision of Misery) before Morris quit the band in '94, leaving the other three to reunite sporadically for recording and touring amid their other, individual musical obligations.
More ‘90s Death Metal: Amorphis’ The Karelian Isthmus, At the Gates’ The Red in the Sky is Ours, Atheist’s Piece of Time, Autopsy’s Mental Funeral, Brutality’s Screams of Anguish, Cannibal Corpse’s Tomb of the Mutilated, Carcass’ Heartwork, Carnage’s Dark Recollections, Comecon’s Converging Conspiracies, Cynic’s Focus, Dark Millennium’s Ashore the Celestial Burden, Dark Tranquillity’s The Gallery, Death’s Human, Deceased’s Fearless Undead Machines, Dismember’s Like an Everflowing Stream, Edge of Sanity’s Unorthodox, Entombed’s Clandestine, God Macabre’s The Winterlong, Gorguts’ Considered Dead, Grave’s Into the Grave, Immolation’s Dawn of Possession, In Flames’ The Jester Race, Malevolent Creation’s Retribution, Massacra’s Final Holocaust, Massacre’s From Beyond, Merciless’ The Treasures Within, Morbid Angel’s Altars of Madness, Morgoth’s Resurrection Absurd, Necrophobic’s The Nocturnal Silence, Nocturnus’ The Key, Obituary’s The End Complete, Pestilence’s Consuming Impulse, Sarcófago’s The Laws of Scourge, Sepultura’s Beneath the Remains, Suffocation’s Effigy of the Forgotten, Tiamat’s The Astral Sleep, Unleashed’s Where No Life Dwells.
