Sabbat
History Of A Time To Come

"You stand before this court, accused of heresy and witch craft. How do you plead?"

"Not guilty!"

"Guilty! Guilty!"

The Inquisition tribunal issues its sentence: guilty of witchcraft and heresy. The unfortunate victim will find himself burned at the stake in no time: "My innocence is a victim of their superstitious fears, religious persecution for all the last three hundred years, preaching peace and mercy under the shadow of the knife, a papal reign of terror, massacre in the name of Christ" (www.icedtears.com).

I personally believed that some derelict would blurt out "No guillotine!" before a court of the French Revolution: having little English leads to these misunderstandings. The aforementioned song is "For Those Who Died" and we are talking about Sabbat, an English band that records for the German label Noise and is followed by the hard-working producer Roy Rowland who, in 1987, was doing great work alongside the Americans Laaz Rockit, the Swedes Midas Touch, and the Germans Kreator with the earthquake-inducing "Terrible Certainty". Rowland takes care of this excellent debut album "History Of A Time To Come" and we immediately discover four tight-knit musicians, well-mannered, willing to play, to gratify the world with their sulfurous Thrash Metal, never mediocre. The musical brain of the band is the angry young man Andy Sneap, an eclectic guitarist and future renowned producer in the extreme metal field, a prodigious composer, whose whirling adolescent hormones do not prevent him from serving deadly riffs paired with very inspired acoustic guitars at the Thrash-era canteen. Andy's worthy counterbalance is singer and lyricist Martin Walkyer, future host of the pagan Skyclad, a generous and versatile narrator, with a fierce, scathing, medieval voice, who hurls his arrows against the Catholic Church and all its fanatical offshoots, from the Inquisition to the selling of indulgences.

The publication of "History Of A Time To Come", in April 1988, is preceded by various demo tapes, among which the legendary "Fragments Of A Faith Forgotten" stands out, adding precious pieces to that underground universe, the secret crypt of '80s Thrash, where we also find "First Strike Is Deadly" by Testament and "No Life Till Leather" by Metallica, heavy and speed protein-rich appetizers that lead to praiseworthy debut albums. The same fate befalls Sabbat who, based on their sketches, forge an imposing record where voice and guitars serve each other, chasing themes that concern Dr. Faust, as in the fast opening song "A Cautionary Tale", preceded by a dark intro (www.truemetal.it/recensioni, another great review and tasty information). The musical coordinates are clear: sonic fragments of Onslaught and marked Slayerian influences that mix, however, with the original sonic compactness of abrasive riffs and the great compositional level that, with hindsight, we identify as a training ground for Andy Sneap as a producer; we also recognize in Martin Walkyer an unyielding troubadour who slips into the forest filled with shadows and roars, spits his Faustian story, declaims furiously, followed by Andy's guitars that match the narrative rhythm, like a wise Sancho Panza accompanies Don Quixote, and this is the novelty: the lyrics and music are tightly entwined like in a dizzying Tango, fused like Carpenter's "The Thing" with its victims, despite a first distracted listening leading us to the opposite thought.

Detractors would invite some singer to replace Martin, thinking it would be easy to continue narrating tales with that mindset, but it is not so. The diction, the syntax, the overlap of periods seem to accommodate the musical movement that we follow within our cerebral cortex, as if an ectoplasm were passing over our hemispheres, an open book with which little phantoms play, letting it fly flat and, when it lands, they look at the figures while hearing the lullaby. Sure, Mille Petrozza also strains his voice on "Storming With Menace", abuses his vocal cords well-produced by Rowland and on the rhythmic carpet created by Ventor. Yet we perceive the sound is not the same, neither better nor worse but simply different; and here we must remember that other German bands were moving with Noise like toddlers learning to walk. The British Sabbat and the Americans Mordred were voices outside the choir and, like rebellious actors on the opera stage, refuse to follow the prompters of the Teutonic label who want frantic Speed and Thrash Metal in the script. Sabbat love speed, but also rational violence as in the chiselled "Behind The Crooked Cross" or they adore speedy solutions but more lively like "Hosanna in Excelsis", focused on religious issues, but also dominated by the excellent drum rolls of drummer Simon Negus and the alternation of slow and fast parts, rising and falling, almost a "The Best Of Enemies" ante litteram.

Just follow the instrumental serenade "A Dead Man's Robe" to understand Sabbat's secret, which starts from a caressed sad guitar and the pine rain then shifts to the immediate explosion of the rhythm section, which starts at full gallop towards the saraband, without excessive refinements on the drum-kit and the bass parts by Fraser Craske that accompany the whole brigade in the ride: a concentration of strength and draconian audacity, clear guitar and rhythmic timing, not even to compare with the instrumental "Speed Of Light" by Assassin, placed there soulless in their debut album.
More oblique rapidity with "I For An Eye" and great sowing by Simon Negus on the skins while "Horned Is The Hunter" is the other mini-suite that arises from the forest's quiet, permeated by the beloved, slow, and pastoral acoustic guitar in the opening and the musical fairytale in the development of the piece: small catchy break and inspired soloing. Andy Sneap at eighteen outstrips many veteran guitarists (but less imaginative) and ferries the album to the conclusive "The Church Bizarre" where Martin throws his arrows against the Church (and there's no trace of Occultism) amid oil-black gushing rhythms and ad hoc tempo changes: European Thrash has found its path, a way to manifest itself in its most Luciferian form, as a demon possesses a more or less human body and displays all its malignancy.

However, Sabbat will ascend to the pantheon of European Thrash Metal with the subsequent "Dreamweaver" (here on DeBaser excellently reviewed by his majesty Bartleboom), with which unprecedented peaks of malice, majesty, and compositional ingenuity are reached: a mysterious manor to explore with a pounding heart, following the evolution of Martin's voice, markedly superior to that shown in this debut. For this "History Of A Time To Come", despite deserving the highest marks, it fails to surpass its successor precisely because of Martin's voice being too gravelly (there is a limit even to fascinating fury) and due to the absence of a counterweight to Andy that exalts his ideas even more, that Simon Jones (ex Holosade) who will play on "Dreamweaver". With the lineup from the aforementioned record, Sabbat reformed at unsuspected times, but the magic of their beginnings will remain unmatched.