Labels: Initial Records
Review by: Kunal Nandi
Here’s a nice retrospective for this fine, batty, humourous, techy hardcore band. With members going on to play for such luminaries as Coliseum, Breather Resist and Black Cross, perhaps there will be some renewed interest in their former combo, and rightly so. Having neatly navigated the pitfall of having a name that instantly reminds you of how good Black Sabbath are by having an opener with a quality rocking start, TNA set about reminding us all of the time when that wave of tech-metal stuff was beginning to get really popular. We’re talking post-Deadguy, but pre-Dillinger when they were modelling for Gap. Although nothing from their three EPs, one 7″ and various comp appearances ever surpassed the sheer terror or memorability of anything from Botch’s “We Are The Romans” or Cave In’s “Beyond Hyperthermia”, TNA at least had the good grace to bring the rock in an unpredictable and enjoyable manner. Casper Adams just sounded good and drunk much of the time (no idea if he actually was), and had a good way with abstract lyrics, whilst musically the band were perhaps generally more into producing good hard, catchy, swingy heaviness than being crazy-tech all the time. This is a nice full-stop to the whole enterprise, with yet another excellent layout by Ryan Patterson a.k.a. Auxiliary Records / Design; functional with all the information and lyrics you could possibly need, but aesthetically pleasing at the same time.