Believer: Sanity Obscure (1990 - 2024) | The Dream Of Playing In The First Division
(Bombworks Records – 2024)
How difficult it is to try to be objective when you are in front of a great album, and especially when the band is called Believer, one of the best acts that Thrash Metal has ever given, despite not receiving the due recognition they deserve. Well here is one of the perfect excuses to take Believer back into account and reconsider. The Bombworks Records label is putting together an excellent collection entitled “Metal Icon Series”, and within this framework, they are re-releasing the excellent “Sanity Obscure”, originally released in 1990, the golden age of Thrash Metal.
We are talking about Believer’s second album, after their debut album with “Extraction From Mortality”, and also their entry under the Roadrunner Records label, a label that brought together the best bands of that style. Logically, the result is superior in several aspects and leads Believer to try to play in the big leagues.
With only 8 songs and only 39 minutes, Believer defines in “Sanity Obscure” the so-called Technical Thrash Metal. Far from the rawness and simplicity of the original Thrash of their first album, here the band leans towards a much more superb thrash version, with overloaded sounds and intricate arrangements. All this without leaving aside the virulence and rage, for which Thrash Metal is known. As a corollary to all this, there is “Dies Irae (Day Of Wrath)”, a praised confluence between Thrash and classical orchestral music (something that many years later Metallica would try with the infamous S and M, with dubious results). Only with that piece of great caliber, it justifies the obligatory listening of this tremendous work. Is that alone? The truth is that “Sanity Obscure” neither begins nor ends there. From the dark beginning of the title track, passing through the rabid “Wisdom’s Call” (an excellent paraphrase of the book of Proverbs), and without leaving aside the trebly “Nonpoint” (the “heaviest” moment of the album) and “Idols Of Ignorance”, it can be said that the first part of this album more than fulfills. In the second half, comes the most superb part, with the well known “Dies Irae” (Day Of Wrath)”, ‘Stop The Madness’ (a deep declaration of principles against drugs) and the ridden ‘Dust To Dust’. The album ends with Believer’s nice version of U2’s “Like A Song”, in a thrash version.
This reissue of “Sanity Obscure that we have in our hands, is really of an excellent quality. The inner envelope has not only the lyrics of the songs but also the band’s history for this work, as well as vintage photographs, posters and flyers from those years. It also comes with a collectible sticker of very good caliber. All the reissue work is impeccable, although we miss the addition of some bonus tracks, with unreleased songs or live recordings of that time as in the case of “Extractions From Mortality”, although looking from the side of purity, it is not bad that the original edition has been respected.
We can discuss if “Sanity Obscure” is Believer’s best album, or not. Later they would release the better known “Dimensions”, which is clearly at the same level or, depending on how you appreciate it, superior to this album. In my personal opinion, “Sanity Obscure” highlights the band more crudely with a much more precise and concise sound than the rest of their albums. At the time, it was well regarded by the press but evidently not for Believer to be anything more than a good band. I guess in those years, the Pantera vein was already raging and left Thrash Metal as something of the recent past, and Thrash Metal was no longer given as much attention as in the past, at least in what the music industry demanded since Thrash Metal always remained in the underground circuit. Anyway, and beyond what happened, this re-release brings us face to face with a work very difficult to get until recently because it was out of print. Another congratulations to the label Bombworks Records and also to the band, that at the date of this publication, we don’t know if they will go on, or not. Another issue. For the time being, the important thing is that both “Sanity Obscure” and the rest of Believer’s albums will be available again in physical format, and in an excellent edition.
To get the CD or the Vinyl you can go to https://boonesoverstock.com
