HEXENHAUS — A Tribute to Insanity (review)

HEXENHAUS — A Tribute to Insanity album cover Album · 1988 · Thrash Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
UMUR
"A Tribute to Insanity" is the debut full-length studio album by Swedish thrash metal act Hexenhaus. The album was originally released through Active Records in 1988 but saw a more widespread reissue through Metal Blade Records in 1990.

The music on the album is thrash metal with some power metallic leanings. It´s mostly the lead guitar work that makes me think of power metal though. The rest of the music is pretty basic thrash metal. Semi-raw staccato style vocals, aggressive rhythmic riffing and predominantly standard vers/chorus song structures. "As Darkness Falls..." is with it´s 10:18 minutes long playing time the longest track on the album and a more adventurous track than most of the other material on the album.

The album is produced by Candlemass bassist Leif Edling and honestly he hasn´t done a very good job here. The guitars sound rather powerless, the drums have a thumb sound to them, and the vocals are placed too low in the mix and have an awkward sounding effect on them. The fact that the material, while well played, aren´t really that memorable, doesn´t help on my impression either.

I hear promise on "A Tribute to Insanity", but it certainly isn´t fullfilled. The most interesting feature on the album is definitely the well played guitar solos, which are of the Andy LaRoque (King Diamond) and Lars Johansson (Candlemass) school. Fast-played shredding solos with a neo-classical flair. Maybe with a better sound producion "A Tribute to Insanity" could have been a more interesting release but as it is I can´t give more than a 3 star (60%) rating. It´s not bad as such, but it´s not really great either.
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