Saq - Foul
HooknMouth Records
Thrash/Hardcore
10 songs ()
Release year: 2004
Reviewed by Tony
Archive review
With the previous duo of reviews, I reviewed Midwestern old school Death Metal killers Nunslaughter . I guess foraying into more localized music could be frowned on by some, but if you can get your hands on the cd, and it's good, why not expose some of the out of towners and even foreigners to some solid riffage, heavy drumming, and brutal compositions.

Being a resident of South Florida, local concert goers get some of the best Death Metal in the world to shred for us. Most of the top Death Metal is actually local, with the American well of brutality, Tampa Bay, only a four hour drive away if the buses don't speed. European Death Metal bands such as Amon Amarth always end their legs here. I guess the biggest drawback would be that Black Metal musicians probably hate it here, and don't come. I couldn't envision corpse painted musicians like Gaahl or the members of Emperor frolicking along our beautiful beaches with pina coladas and actually enjoying the sweltering heat that is searing into our skin at this time of year.

Ranting aside, this review is designated for the Thrashy Hardcore band Saq who opened for Lecherous Nocturne who opened for Skeletonwitch who opened for headliners Cannibal Corpse . Saq originate from Margate, Florida. A suburb only about 5 minutes away from my fiancee's house, and have been plying their brand of Metal for a while now, opening for many reputable acts which are highly favored by us reviewers as well as the forumites. With my initial classic review, you all now know that I was there for Cannibal Corpse but to be honest, aside from Skeletonwitch (who enhanced my experience by hanging out with me after, signing a drumhead, and attracting two cool girls who bought me and my mate drinks all night) Saq were the most fun band.

What I'm leading you, the reader into, is the fact that even lesser known opening bands deserve national recognition, if their music is good enough to warrant it.

Saq formed a while ago, sometime in the mid 90s, and didn't release this, their first full length, until 2004. The band live can best be described as a Hellish Thrash show with face melting solos by lead vocalist and guitarist Mike Rivera. Sometimes metal in a live setting can be harsh on the ears if the sound guy is dreadful, but Saq held their own, even if the sound was rushed and the snare drum was far too noisy. Saq played mostly songs from this album along with some great songs that they had on their earlier demos(such as slow to mid paced headbanger Rot .

Upon the first listen I noticed that the quality was there but the approach Saq take on Foul was very different than the circle pit inducing mayhem that they purported as their live show. Foul is calculated, powerful, and progressive.

The first track is Take It which opens with a short clip from what I believe is the scene in cinematic classic Boondock Saints when Rocco is held at gunpoint by the brothers and rapidly realizes that they are the ones responsible for all the criminal bodies turning up. Not sure, but that might be it. Take It starts up with a very brief guitar intro before the drums enter with a standard Thrash beat. Right when you think this could be a Thrash album with just one drum beat, the occasional tom rolling fill and some recycled open palmed riffs, the song screeches to a halt with a stuttering slowed up riff before immediately turning on the aggression once again. As a metalhead who despises ANYTHING with the word "core" at the end (Metalcore, Hardcore, Grindcore, Deathcore it all sucks) Mike Rivera's very Metalcore tinged voice remains lyrically audible and is heavy as Hell yet still maintains enough of the Thrash quality to make it a tolerable and even somewhat enjoyable vocal performance. If you are a metalhead who enjoys the occasional Metalcore album, then you're in luck because his voice is very much geared towards that genre. Much like some of us complain about the Metalcore tinge to the vocals of Warbringer , yet still enjoy the band as a whole, this condition can be compared to Rivera's vox in Saq .

To me, there are a couple songs on this album that just seem like hurried Metalcore songs designed for the very sake of headbanging. When Saq get artistic is when they flourish as a band. The fourth track entitled Forsaken is my favorite of the album. It begins with some melodic guitar harmonies before a few lines of clean vocals (not sure who sings them) come in. Usually clean vox in a band like this could spell disaster, but whoever sung these lines had almost a Geddy Lee like quality to him, and I say that with confidence, knowing that the Progheads on this site will probably kill me for it. This continues for a minute or so until Rivera enters with a particularly heavy riff and matching drum beat with the triplets on the double bass that have become such a mainstay in Thrash Metal since Gene Hoglan invented, curated, and perfected the triplets on foot on Dark Angel's Darkness Descends (which is a well deserved classic here on MR). This song continues to ebb and flow to my liking, with just enough melody and just enough violence to keep my attention in both of my metal moods: The melodic, darkened, contemplative mood, and the brash, drunk, haggard wild animal mood.

Probably the 3rd best song on the album and most likely what I have determined to be the heaviest is track 6: Consequences . This song introduces the listener to a 9th degree of headbanging that is unheard of before this track. With detuned triplets on the guitar rounding out a wholesome, chunky sound that definitely got the crowd going at that show. The song also introduces a new dimension of clean vocals coupled with short moments laden with blast beats. Aside from the progressiveness and the lack of an all out firestorm which differentiates Foul from their live set, the biggest and most noticeable difference is the structure and methodology which Rivera solos. Let me make this very clear: Mike Rivera is an awesome guitarist... The dude can play. In fact, I would go as far as saying he played far and beyond the best solos (at least to my liking, with my chief influences as a guitarist myself being Kirk Hammet and Kerry King) at that show. Surely some of you may ask why I did not deem the dual shredding attack of Skeletonwitch as the best soloists. Certainly Skeletonwitch got the best crowd response (due to the fact that even the toughest of us were exhausted by the end of that show) and they encouraged those lovely looking girls to buy us more alcohol, but Mike Rivera could shred. I reckon some of you might get a little annoyed that I have mentioned so much Saq's live performance. Some of you might liken it to a live report and break my balls over this, but I feel it is important to note the disparity between Saq's onslaught of a live show (specifically concerning Mike Rivera's guitar solos) and the cool, calculation that is the leads on Foul The solos here almost assume patterns of different genres song by song. Some harmonize like a Power Metal band might do, while some shred like Thrash, and some even go the prog route with slower, more well construed licks.

I loved Saq live, (especially their bad ass cover of The Frayed Ends of Sanity to close their set) and must say I am satisfied with Foul as a more well thought of track list. It was evident that some of their older material was played live, as Foul shows a more mature, evolved, and seasoned band than was the brainchild of Rivera in his early years.

Killing Songs :
Take It, Forsaken, Consequences
Tony quoted 80 / 100
Other albums by Saq that we have reviewed:
Saq - Heavy reviewed by Tony and quoted 94 / 100
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