A Vision of Misery is the third full-length album by the thrash metal band Sadus, released in 1992.
Reissued by Displeased Records in 2007 with a bonus DVD, also reissued in January 2007 by Metal Mind Productions as a Deluxe digipak gold-disc edition with two bonus Demo tracks taken from the 1987 Demo album Certain Death Demo as well as liner notes.
Background and writing
Sadus bassist Steve Di Giorgio recalled the album's writing process: "I would say it was our most quickly composed album. We didn’t have the time of developing older demo songs, they were all new ideas and came at a time when there was a lot going on otherwise. We finished the touring cycle for Swallowed In Black in June/July of 91, and prior to that I was in Florida recording with Death. We got to the song writing soon after the tour. But I had a minor surgery in this time that took me out of rehearsing with the band for a little while, although I used the time to form some of my own compositions. Shortly after recovering from surgery I went to record with Autopsy around the end of the year. Right after the turn of the year, early 1992, we were in the studio in California with Bill Metoyer recording these songs that would be A Vision Of Misery. The writing was a little more evenly spread too as Darren wrote four, me three and Rob two songs each. So without one person having a huge work load, I think it was able to come together quicker than other Sadus records."
Recording and production
Di Giorgio recalled the album's recording process in 2017: "Bill Metoyer was not only an easy going guy that made some of our out-of-the-norm ideas becomes real, but was also a great teacher. I was curious and excited to learn the console controls and run the tape machine, and he was a calm mentor to me. And this also helped the recording process as I was running the studio for some of the guitar recording. Being involved us three guys (me, Darren & Rob) in writing, the language of the riffs was easy to navigate without explaining to someone new to the complexities of hyper-speed fretboard gymnastics. And obviously sitting there next to Bill during the mix helped me appreciate how to listen to the whole spectrum when I was used to just focusing on my instrument like most do." The album contains dual basslines in addition to dual guitar harmonies. According to Aaron Maltz of Invisible Oranges, some of the album's riffs "sound more like classic prog on amphetamines than metal." Sadus bassist Steve Di Giorgio explained: "I think as always we all had our individual influences that provided self-inspiration. As experienced musicians at this point in early 1992 I think working with professional bands like Obituary and Sepultura and Hexx... Ideas that translated into the Sadus world influenced how we organized and conducted some procedures. But sound wise, I think we had our own sound that we were working on developing and evolving deep in our secret lab of brutality."
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