"Mourning Has Broken" is not nearly as bad as some old Sabbat fans have said, but after listening to the album, I can understand why they are/were disappointed. It is an overlooked chapter in band's history, since the stylistic and vocal change was too marked after the previous two excellent albums.
After Martin Walkyier had exited, the band found replacement in Ritchie Desmond, who was significantly different from Martin's venomous voice. Desmond's soaring vocals did not fit the previous style of music, while he is not having a necessarily awful voice of his own accord, but is not a suitable replacement for Martin's aggressive, barking and burning vocals. In fact it seems a lot like Sabbat are trying to write a moody Progressive Power/Thrash Metal album, that only resembles the predecessors through some of Sneap's boxy, dark distortion.
Andy Sneap's guitar work and Simon Negus' drums drive the many tempo changes of this tune, which varies back and forth from mid-paced to fast. Andy created a whole lot of great solos throughout their songs and used a lot of progressions to make them sound different each time. But sometimes the songs sounds detached and there is no synergy. It doesn't mean, that Sneap was turned into a bad guitarist overnight. What is missing from this album is the adversarial spirit that Walkyier provided. Band was defined by the chemistry between the two of them.
However, despite the mentioned changes and shortcomings, the third and at the same time the last album is quite capable, it just does not reach the quality of the previous works. I think the album would have sounded much better with Walkyier's singing. Because as I wrote above, Desmond's melodic singing is not bad, but it doesn't quite fit the band and it couldn't replace or catch up with its predecessor. ... See More