In keeping with the thrash scene on a worldwide scale, we come to England's Sabbat. England is well-known for its place in metal history, spawning leading metal bands Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Motorhead, Venom, Iron Maiden, and many other highly influential metal bands. But the country also produced some fine bands from other styles. It had a highly underrated thrash metal scene lead by Onslaught, Cancer, Xentrix, and Sabbat.I bought this album along with several other albums by groups like Death Angel, Draconian, Behemoth, and Devian. I was in Lincoln for a legal education seminar on trial presentation and decided to head over to my favorite music store (which has since closed) and pick some stuff up. I had heard of this band, but I really did not know if I was getting the British band, or the Japanese band of the same name, who I did previously own an album by. It was kind of a throw-in to the larger purchase because it was fairly cheap. It was not until fully absorbing the album that I realized that it was far and away my favorite pickup of the day.
Sabbat is very clearly influenced by the NWOBHM, and I guess when you're from that same country, that's going to be a big influence. But the riffs are stronger and sharper, the aggression is greater, and the overall speed is faster. The band recombined some thrash metal influences with their already strong NWOBHM influences.
The thing that really interests me in this band is Martin Walkyier's vocals. He has an unusual vocal style, a kind of staccato, rhythmic style that he uses. It really catches the ear and forces the listener to pay attention. He would later use the same style in his followup band Skyclad.
This is a highly underrated thrash metal masterpiece. I highly recommend checking it out.
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