Having instantly established themselves as a force to be reckoned among British-bred thrash bands, the members of
Sabbat then set to work squandering their massive potential by trying to kill each other. With their creative relationship already heading south at alarming speed, the band's dual creative forces, vocalist
Martin Walkyier and guitarist
Andy Sneap, proceeded to butt heads throughout the recording process for
Sabbat's second album,
Dreamweavers, and it shows. As if to counteract
Walkyier's increasingly unpredictable flights of lyrical fancy, thrash purist
Sneap ensures that his riffing is even tighter and more precise (though no less inventive) than on the band's first album, but strangely, it also lacks some of the debut's bottom-end punch in the gut. The mood-setting intro, "The Beginning of the End," leads into first track proper, "The Clerical Conspiracy," and it's a corker, showing that
Walkyier's utter contempt for organized religion continues to rage unabated. Also unchanged is his amazing verbosity, and he proceeds to spew mountains of rapid-fire ramblings about his favorite subjects (witchcraft, insanity, mythology, etc.). He also delves esoteric on the multi-faceted "Do Dark Horses Dream of Nightmares?," then leads the band through an eight-minute climax via the grandiose "The Best of Enemies (Wulf's Tale)." Also of interest, the delicately acoustic "Advent of Insanity" unveils his clean singing voice for the first time (and reveals the lisp which his death metal rasping usually managed to conceal, to boot) and the ultra-dense lyrical excursions of "Mythistory" preface the inevitable acoustic guitar outro piece. Ultimately,
Dreamweavers isn't as strong throughout as its predecessor, but serious thrashers won't be disappointed. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia