The album that should have put British thrash metal on the world map, Sabbat’s Dreamweaver pagan thrash concept record remains one of the most compelling nearly-was stories the UK scene has ever produced. Released in June 1989, Dreamweaver: Reflections Of Our Yesterdays arrived with genuine artistic ambition and left behind a catalogue of reasons it never quite delivered on its promise.
From Hydra to Sabbat: the road to Dreamweaver
Sabbat started life as Hydra in June 1985, built around vocalist Martin Walkyier, bassist Fraser Craske and guitarist Andy Sneap. Drummer Simon Negus came in, replacing Mark Daley, and a second name change followed, with second guitarist Adam Ferman also departing around the same time. Two early demos, Magik In Theory And Practice and Fragments Of A Faith Forgotten, pulled in serious media attention and secured the band a deal with German label Noise Records, though, as Sneap has recalled, the contract couldn’t actually be signed until he turned 18. Their 1988 debut, History Of A Time To Come, confirmed the foursome’s class. By the end of that year, guitarist Simon Jones (formerly of Darlington’s Holosade) had joined to make them a five-piece, and everything pointed towards a breakthrough.
The concept for the second album came from Walkyier. ‘I had read a novel called The Way Of Wyrd by Brian Bates, and thought it could be easily adapted to Sabbat,’ he recalls. ‘I was always into the idea of doing concepts anyway, and the rest of the band were up for that idea.’ The 1983 Bates novel, a fantasy set in pre-Christian England, gave Walkyier the spiritual and pagan framework he wanted. Sneap, meanwhile, had been developing increasingly complex musical material. ‘They were more involved than had been the case on our debut, but that was to some extent because I was trying to keep myself entertained,’ he says. ‘I did read The Way Of Wyrd, and enjoyed it. Martin did an amazing job in fitting the whole story into the lyrics.’
Six weeks in Berlin, and the production that haunts Sabbat’s Dreamweaver pagan thrash legacy
Sabbat relocated to Noise Studios in Berlin to record with producer Roy Rowland, who had worked on the debut. It did not go smoothly. ‘Roy was waiting for a delivery of acoustic tiles because the studio sounded awful,’ says Sneap. ‘Noise had bought it from Tangerine Dream and ripped out a carpet that was in there. It was replaced with a pine floor and, as the ceiling was low, the sound was dreadful. A great start for us, especially when you consider that Noise were charging us for studio time while Roy waited for those tiles.’
The band ended up spending six weeks in Berlin, with Walkyier and Sneap staying on through the mix. Behaviour escalated. ‘There were objects flying out of fifth floor windows, microwaves being blown up and lots of drunken behaviour,’ Sneap laughs. ‘So, it was decided to send the other three guys home.’ Through all of it, the band were surviving on the equivalent of £3 per day. ‘We could barely afford to eat anything,’ Walkyier recalls, placing it plainly at the door of Noise Records’ indifference: ‘Having signed us, the label didn’t show any interest in what we did.’
The tapes themselves caused problems too. ‘Everything was on two-inch tape, which caused its own problems,’ says Walkyier. ‘The tracks which bookended the album started to wear out.’ Walkyier is candid about Rowland being the wrong choice: ‘Everything about Dreamweaver suggests, even now, that it could have been a great album, except the production.’
The split, the Skyclad years, and an uneasy legacy
Despite strong critical notices on release, Dreamweaver did not translate into the commercial breakthrough Sabbat needed. Walkyier and Craske left after a tour with Manowar. The reasons, Walkyier is clear, had nothing to do with the pagan lyrical content: ‘All of us shared an interest in that side of things. The Paganism was never a problem.’ The real factors were financial and creative. Walkyier was living at home on £27 a week income support, his girlfriend pregnant with his son, while Sneap’s compositions were heading towards 11-minute metal epics that left no room for where Walkyier wanted to take his writing.
After his departure, Walkyier formed Skyclad, whose fusion of metal and folk went on to be widely influential. Sneap and Negus carried on as Sabbat with a new line-up, releasing 1991’s Mourning Has Broken before folding. Sneap later conceded the record should never have come out under the Sabbat name.
Walkyier, Craske and Jones later reunited as Return To The Sabbat in the late 1990s. Sneap, by then building a career as an engineer and producer, blocked use of the Sabbat name, citing debts left behind after the departures. A full reunion did arrive in 2006, with the band supporting Cradle Of Filth at a handful of dates, only for another argument between Walkyier and Sneap to end things again. The band has remained inactive since.
The album’s reputation, though, has only grown. Sneap, whose credits as producer and mixer span albums by Machine Head, Arch Enemy, Killswitch Engage and Judas Priest, reflects on it with a mixture of pride and frustration. ‘What this album ended up being was Martin screaming poetry over loads and loads of riffs,’ he says. ‘If a band came to me today with these ideas, I’d pull it apart and get them to rethink the songs.’ Walkyier agrees the potential was there: ‘The songs and musicianship are still really strong. I can’t fault them. But the production, you can hear holes all over the place.’ Both men, it seems, hear the album the same way: a genuinely original piece of Sabbat’s Dreamweaver pagan thrash vision, undone by circumstance, youth and a label that charged them for studio time while the producer waited for acoustic tiles. Read the original piece and more at Louder / Metal Hammer.
