UMUR
"Swallowed in Black" is the 2nd full-length studio album by US, California based thrash metal act Sadus. The album was released through R/C Records in September 1990. Sadus were formed in 1984 and released their debut full-length studio album "Illusions" in 1988. The lineup who recorded the debut album is intact on "Swallowed in Black".
Stylistically Sadus continues the aggressive thrash metal style they played on "Illusions (1988)". Darren Travis (vocals, guitars) has a caustic snarling delivery, that when it´s not über aggressive, is close to hysteria. The band predominantly play fast...really fast, but they do lower the speed for limited periods of time, which makes the music slightly more varied than what initial listens may reveal. It´s overall not that varied though, and I´d go as far as to call it one-dimensional. Some tracks stand out (like the two short ones "Last Abide" and "In Your Face"), but when you get half way through the album, it gets hard to tell the tracks apart. It does become a minor issue, but not an overshadowing one.
The music features many tempo changes, breaks, and little details, which occasionally reach jaw dropping levels, but the band are very well playing and execute the fairly technical thrash metal to perfection. Especially drummer Jon Allen and bassist Steve DiGiorgio deserve mentions for their contributions. The latter is on fire all the way through the album with some very busy fretwork not usually heard from bassists in the genre. He has a very dominant role in the soundscape. Also because of the rather thin sounding rhythm guitars, which often take second seat to the bass.
"Swallowed in Black" is actually an album that´s a bit hard to rate, because it´s absolutely fantastic in some ways (expecially the musicianship is quite astonishing), but the rather one-dimensional take on composition and lack of immediate hooks make the album seem much longer than it´s 44:34 minutes, and that of course drags in a more negative direction. So while I really want to award this one with a 4 star (80%) rating, there are simply too many flaws for me to justify such a high rating and a 3.5 star (70%) rating is more appropriate.