Local metal legends Anacrusis reunited for a couple of gigs last spring to promote the release of the double CD Hindsight: Suffering Hour and Reason Revisited, a new re-recording of the band's first two albums (which were originally released in 1988 and 1990). The release and shows went over well, and the band will return to the stage at the Firebird at Saturday, February 26. Murder Happens opens. Doors are at 8 p.m.; tickets are $8. The melodic, thrashy, proggy quartet just posted a new song, "This Killer In My House ," as a free download on its website. A to Z caught up with singer-guitarist Kenn Nardi for an update on the band and its future plans.
D.X. Ferris:: Is the new song a leftover from the old days, or did you write it since the reunion? Kenn Nardi: Most of the song was written very spontaneously while John [Emery, bass], Mike [Owen, drummer] and I were jamming at rehearsal last year. I had everything set up to record our reunion rehearsals. Later I went through the recordings to pull out new stuff we were working on and decided to chop it up, put it back together and write some lyrics. I don't think Mike or John even remembered it until I played them the finished demo, which was recorded a few months ago. This new version was just done in recent weeks.
Why give it away free? I wanted to share the song with the fans that have been asking about new music for years and also give local fans a chance to hear it before the show. We still have no definite plans for an official album, and we're definitely not planning to resurrect the band full-time, so at this point we'd just as soon share something new with people who are interested. It's a very different world these days and for us, it's really just about enjoying an occasional show and having a creative outlet.
Video for the re-recorded version of "Imprisoned," originally from 1988's Suffering LP; live footage from 2010 reunion gigs in STL and Germany:
Did you record anything else at the sessions? We have recorded lots of new music. Some is in pieces and some in full songs. We have begun tracking several new complete songs and after the show we will dig back into that more seriously with a couple months in between that and [Germany's] Rock Hard Festival in June. We have so much music, but it's a matter of approaching it properly.
Much of it would work well as new Anacrusis music and some of it wouldn't. This is the tough thing about recording again after so many years. Some fans are disappointed if you simply copy yourselves, and others hate it if you try anything new. Anacrusis' music was never about repeating ourselves, and there are definitely some new twists but people who appreciate us for trying new things will be into most of it, I believe.
What will the set list be like? I think it's good to leave a couple surprises, but I will say that we are going to play more songs from Manic Impressions and Screams and Whispers this time including a couple things we haven't played since Manic was released and one song we've never ever played live.
