Sabbat: Desecration (1988)

The next four posts will cover some very early Sabbat demos.  This is the Sabbat from Japan, not the U.K.  Sabbat has generally been a very prolific band and a lot of their early material has recently been reissued.  I first picked up four of the demos, but later added three of the early albums as well.  This string is just the demos.  None of these posts is going to be terribly long, because none of the releases are very long.

This was just the fourth release Sabbat put out and is a quick and dirty four-song EP.  It starts out ominously with the song "Welcome to Sabbat", which is actually a nice way to introduce the band in general.  It lays the groundwork for what is to come, which is some damn impressive blackened thrash metal that owes its existence to Mercyful Fate and Venom.  This particular release veers much closer to thrash metal in the faster-paced riffs and howling vocals, but it is easy to see where the style was heading in the blackened thrash direction.  The best song here is probably "Crest of Satan", which is the longest and features some great riffs that belie the fact that this band is so young at this point.  "Darkness and Evil" is the closest the album comes to a defined black metal song.

It is obvious Sabbat was still finding themselves here, but this is a damn impressive release for something so early in their vast catalog.  I do not know if I recommend it to people discovering the band for the first time, but it is interesting nonetheless.