Review by Rexorcist for Sabbat (GBR) - History of a Time to Come (1988)

After checking out English thrash band Sabbat's two early demos, I went straight into the debut.  I expected a fun but standard-sounding thrash band, as was the norm of the time, and for the most part.  But I honestly have to say that I'm not terribly impressed with this overall.  The writing quality, production quality and the overall atmosphere are a little better than the usual thrash debut album I came across for the thrash challenge on Metal Academy.  Destruction was generic and underproduced for several albums, for example.  This has PROPER production.  Not perfect, but proper and largely clear with only a faint hint of noise factor.  The album's overall vibe and essence is fun fodder for the thrash junkie.  The technicality isn't that extreme, and largely done before, but it showcases all the skills that the demos showed off but were unfortunately tarnished by demo quality audio, and almost completely drowned by the first.  The eight-minute epic, Horned Is the Hunter, pretty much drags through standard thrash behavior without any sense of branching out.  Eventually it got so samey, monotone and standard that I was losing interest.  I finished it, though.  Overall, this debut is decent but passable.

67