The sixth album from the American thrash metal institution, and their first in seventeen years, Sadus‘ The Shadow Inside is a reunion of sorts, reuniting founding members Darren Travis (vocals, guitar, bass, and keyboards) and Jon Allen (drums), but without Steve Di Giorgio. While the album was started back in August 2017, with Darren Travis posting the news on Facebook that the band would be recording new material, it was not until late 2022 that the band announced their signing with Nuclear Blast, and it has taken almost another year again for the album to finally emerge.
The album opens with Darren’s spacey guitar, floating amidst a sea of keyboard, leading into the heavy introduction of First Blood. It’s a solid opening, slightly marred by a clinical production, but when the riff storm finally detonates, the adrenaline starts to flow, and we’re off – the band clearly enjoying themselves. A multi-tiered piece that deftly changes through the gears thanks to Jon’s impressive chops behind the kit, it’s Darren’s unholy vocal performance that seals the deal, but the track itself fails to maintain its momentum over the course of its seven-minute runtime, appearing to end several times before finally reaching its conclusion. Next up, Scorched And Burnt fades into view – an odd stylistic choice – but it comes together when Darren’s voice looms out of the darkness, introducing a brutal slab of mid-tempo thrash that sounds like Megadeth covering Obituary. A heavier beast, It’s The Sickness emerges as a heavy groove, custom designed to get heads banging everywhere, while the minimalist chorus is brutally effective. Slowing the pace, the doom-laden horror of Ride The Knife takes a full minute to build its head of steam, with Darren’s vocals even more tormented than usual. When the track finally picks up, it is to flail at the listener with undisguised malevolence, recalling Slayer’s Piece By Piece in terms of naked aggression but, like the opening number, it overstays its welcome. The first half of the album concludes with Anarchy – a suitably frantic outpouring, delivered at a breathless pace that leaves you gasping in its wake.
Opening the album’s second half, The Devil In Me gets off to a good start, and it builds to a satisfyingly scathing passage of full-on thrash. However, rather than comfortably end at this point, the band revert back to the slower tempo of the track’s first half, diminishing the impact considerably. Pain, built around the rumbling thunder of Jon’s drums has a nice scything riff, although it remains mid-tempo throughout, and it’s a relief when the faster No Peace emerges to batter the listener into submission. With the album’s end in sight, the short New Beginnings (a track that barely exceeds two minutes), is little more than an introduction to final track, The Shadow Inside. A moody prelude, it provides a certain respite from the brutality found elsewhere, before the title track delivers its payload, and the album ends on a high, with Sadus riding off into the sunset, middle fingers held aloft as they go.
The Shadow Inside is a welcome return from Sadus, but a difficult album to love. All too often songs are pushed well beyond their natural limits and tracks that should end in a blaze of white hot riffing (for example First Blood and Ride The Knife), instead reset to their opening tempo, lessening the impact in the process. With tighter editing to remove the various false endings and odd fade ins, this would be an absolute belter. As it is, the album is overlong and, despite a number of truly awesome moments, it can’t quite sustain its runtime. 6.5/10
