Sanity Obscure
| Sanity Obscure | ||||
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| Studio album by Believer | ||||
| Released | 1990 | |||
| Recorded | 1990, Morning Star Studios, Spring House, Pennsylvania | |||
| Genre | Progressive thrash metal, symphonic metal | |||
| Length | 37:49 | |||
| Label |
Roadrunner (1991) R.E.X. Records (1990) |
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| Producer | Doug Mann and Paul Krueger | |||
| Believer chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
| Cross Rhythms |  |
Sanity Obscure is the second album by the Christian thrash metal band Believer, published in 1990 by R.E.X. Records and a year later by Roadrunner Records. Several mainstream magazines praised the album.
Sanity Obscure was recorded and mixed in Morning Star Studios, Spring House, Pennsylvania in 1990. The album was produced by Doug Mann and Paul Krueger. Sanity Obscure was mastered in The Hit Factory, New York. The intro for "Sanity Obscure" was recorded at HMS Productions and was engineered by Ted Hermanson. All songs, apart from "Dies Irae", are written by quartet Kurt Bachman, Joey Daub, David Baddorf, and Wyatt Robertson, who replaced the former member Howe Kraft.
Sanity Obscure begins with an intro called "Teddy Bears", in which a musical box tune distorts into obscurity. The album contains "dissonant guitar riffs, unusual stop-start rhythms and complicated arrangements", with Kurt Bachman's vocals being "the only conventional sounding characteristic of Sanity Obscure."
The lyrics deal with theology and social issues. "Wisdom's Call" is about personal wisdom and its calling that simple people reject. "Stop the Madness" talk about a drug user who has been brainwashed by a decaying world, and is always searching to belong but is too blind to see his shattered dreams. "Nonpoint" takes a stance on the dark side of the industrialized society where general ignorance has caused pollution that corrupts nature, and in the end, man's soul. "Like a Song" is a cover of a U2's rebel song which ponders that one must start revolution from within oneself before one can change the world.
"Dies Irae (Day of Wrath)" is usually cited as the highlight of the album. According to Jeff Wagner in his book Mean Deviation, the song was a creative watershed in metal, and except for Mekong Delta, no other extreme metal band at the time had merged the genre with classical music so seamlessly. The orchestral section was conducted by Scott Laird. The song's first three minutes consist of orchestrated strings, synthesizer effects and the soprano vocals of Julianne Laird Hoge. After that the band joins in with its thrash metal output in contrast with the orchestration. Doug Mann executed the concept of the song and the band section was composed by Kurt Bachman. Dies irae itself is a Latin poem or hymn which prays mercy at the dawn of apocalypse. The poem was originally written by Thomas of Celano, an Italian friar of the Franciscans, who lived in 13th century and was an obligatory part of the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass for some centuries before 1969. Kurt Bachman stated that the song was inspired by Mozart's Requiem Mass.
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