7

Unimaginative but solid thrash metal.

To be brutally honest, I'm getting sick of identical-sounding bands. Thrash metal and death metal are two genres particularly guilty of nurturing bands who simply sound like a description of their chosen genre, copying the big names, the pioneers, but removing all traces of originality, creativity and inventiveness, and Sadus are a band particularly guilty of this. They add some funny little electronic touches (for instance on 'No More', the typical thrash riffs suddenly cut out ever so often, to be replaced by what sounds like a minature Casio keyboard having a seizure, creating an interesting but disjointed sound), but it takes more than chucking in some keyboards to make music interesting.

After the band's seven year hiatus, 'Out For Blood' is billed as Sadus returning to their "Aggressive Thrash Metal" (don't you just love unnecessary capital letters?) roots, though the reader of their press release is hastily reassured that it's also "very much up to date sounding", perhaps a reference to those aforementioned keyboards. So this is maybe more an album aimed at the already loyal fan, who just wants more of the same, rather than an attempt to amaze the world with folk influenced neo classical thrashcore, or whatever. Plenty of bands are perfectly good despite a lack of inventiveness, for instance Iron Maiden have built their career on nothing more than generic metal riffs, with the odd foray into synths or acoustic numbers. So it might be unfair of me to criticise Sadus based on their...um...traditional take on the thrash genre. But I'm going to do so anyway, because quite frankly the last thing the world needs is more sound-alikes cluttering up the already crowded metal racks in music shops. Sadus inadvertantly sum it up themselves in the abruptly titled 'Sick': "there's too many people in this world"...the same could be said of uninventive thrash bands, Sadus.

'Out for Blood' is not without it's good points, though. The production is impressive, with mountainous riffs colliding with mighty drum beats in some kind of vast thrash metal apocalypse. The credit for this goes to Borge Finstrad, who despite having the low-fi noise assault of Mayhem to his name, also seems to know a thing or two about slickly produced metal. Also, for all it's similarities to a thousand and one other bands, 'Out For Blood' is very much at the better end of the generic thrash spectrum. Committed fans of the genre are bound to appreciate this more than I, somewhat jaded by my love of more unusual metal, could. It might not break any boundaries ot challenge the listener, but it's difficult not to develop a bit of a liking for an album with lyrics like "bullet goes in...brain comes out...(x3)/bullet goes in...shit comes out..". Pure poetry.