DESPAIR's "Far Beyond Reason" is an extremely solid Thrash Metal album that does a lot of different things here and there to keep it from being too run of the mill. Thrash is a genre that is hard to do a whole lot with as just changing anything that deviates from awesome riffs and speed tends to change the whole dynamic of the genre itself. However, DESPAIR managed to add a little flavor to the mix. The most obvious example is the Symphonic Metal sounding opening track "Beyond Comprehension" that gives away to a Thrash attack before jumping into the next track, "Deaf and Blind" which features simple but effective keyboards that add just the right amount of depth to make you keep listening. The songs have some light Prog elements in terms of song structure; "In The Deep" starts off with a more classical sound, keyboards mixing with clean guitar and features several phases of slowing down and speeding up. The highlight of the album is actually the last track. It's an instrumental that sounds like the 80's era of Thrash, with multiple time changes and more complicated guitar licks.

The band, even though they clearly like changing things up from time to time, never become pretentious with it and most of the songs still have some really great solos and bridges of riffs just breaking down the walls.  The light Prog elements, while enhancing the album just enough, make you appreciate the thrash even more. The best aspect of the album is the energy that ends and leads into the next track.  Even the songs that have slower parts always end up thrashing out at the end, burning the ears until suddenly its over with just seconds left more the next assault hits. Vocalist Andreas Henschel, like with most Thrash vocalists, isn't anything special but he isn't god awful; he sounds like a mix between EXODUS' Souza and Tom Araya. Ok maybe that does mean he is terrible?  Anyway, the vocal point is, of course, are the guitars and drums.  Sorychta and Greschek play solid and speedy riffs. They don't delve into anything super urgent like SLAYER or complicated like METALLICA's earliest stuff but they are serviceable and surprisingly catchy. On a few moments, such as in "The Day of Desperation," they provide some twin guitar attacks with a lot of melody that works really well.  Likewise, the drums aren't the fastest or have the most going on, but they are clear in the mix and provide a solid background and compliment the songs very well.The band burned out in the early 90's but this album is evident that, had they stayed together, DESPAIR could had stood with the best of them.

This album was originally released by Century Media records but over 20 years later Divebomb Records has remastered and released it again.  Thrash fans should be this one up.