Kenn Nardi - Dancing With the Past

Kenn Nardi! Kenn Who? admitted I also only knew who he was, but not his name. This mainly since I completely missed Anacrusis when they still released CD's 1988-1994 (shame on me). I read about them and learned to know them some 10 years later and again some 7 years later I even saw them live during one of their last shows ever at Alcatraz in Belgium. Anacrusis played a technical version of thrash metal with some moody links. Years ago their website offered all 4 albums as a free download and especially last two "Manic Impressions" and "Screams and Whispers" are not to be missed. Way ahead of their time, as they say. So rather late I found I liked their style a lot and was curious for potential new work. Well that was not going to happen in the end, but this release is pretty much in the same vein.

Kenn Nardi was guitaris/vocalist in Anacrusis and this release gives us an overview of his work since 1994. Upon first listening I was a bit underwhelmed. This was because of the enormous amount of new music to absorb (over 2.5 hours!) and the fact that the numbers need to be heard very carefully to be understood. Luckily he doesn't play this only once, so here we are three weeks later and it seems that finally the penny dropped. Going stylish to technical thrash with dark overtones, he also varies his voice between clear, soft, thrash singing, Darrel Wane holding back a bit alike and thrash screams (when he goes screaming he gets at his most emotional and best "Give them Eyes to See"!! in The Dark and The Light). At first the double album passed me without getting into much of a detail, now I found out that there are some beautiful dark semi-ballads, some heavy slow rockers and some all out thrash parts.

I guess anyone who liked Anacrusis should give this a try, but please take your time to digest. If this would be one CD of 45 minutes with my favorites, it would probably be one of the best released this year. Now we just need to be patient and for the first time I can recommend not going through a full album in one go. Take it in parts and find there is a lot to enjoy here.