Description and History
One of the old Bay Area thrash metal bands, mostly well-known for the Furiously Fast Fretless work of their bass player Steve DiGiorgio, who would later go on to perform in more famous bands, including Death, Control Denied, Testament and Iced Earth. Starting out as a high school band in 1984, Sadus was originally a quartet consisting of Darren Travis on guitar and vocals, Rob Moore on even more guitar, Jon Allen on drums and Steve DiGiorgio on fretted and fretless bass. The 90's was a turbulent period for the band, with Steve working on the countless other projects he was involved in, and Rob Moore having to leave the band. The band was plunged into crisis and a period of dormancy when DiGiorgio left Sadus because of time pressure due to his other projects, mainly Chuck Schuldiner's band Death. Fortunately for Sadus, DiGiorgio rejoined the band in late 1996, and they recorded their 1997 release Chronicles of Chaos shortly afterwards.
It is often said that hardcore, black metal, grunge and recording industry politics killed thrash metal, thrusting the subgenre into obscurity. Sadus (along with Slayer and Testament) is one of the very few surviving bands from that scene and that era. Their early recordings sound much like "generic" thrash metal and is obviously heavily influenced by Slayer, but the band found its own niche later in its history. While Sadus' records feature cool guitar riffs, fast-paced double bass drum lines and excellent guitar solos, Sadus pioneered the role of the bass in thrash metal. Usually relegated to a background role (the canonical example being Slayer bassist and vocalist Tom Araya, whose bass lines tend to be simple and monotonous picking on the E-string), the bass leaps straight into vast unexplored musical territories in Sadus, even playing the occasional solo. They were the first band within the harder end of heavy metal to feature a fretless bass.
Members
- Darren Travis (vocals, guitar)
- Jon Allen (drums)
- Steve DiGiorgio (bass)
Discography
- (1986) D.T.P.
- (1987) Certain Death
- (1988) Illusions
- (1989) The Wake of Severity
- (1990) Swallowed in Black
- (1992) Vision of Misery
- (1994) Red Demo
- (1997) Chronicles of Chaos
- (1997) Elements of Anger
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