The Historic “Time’s End” Turns 40 | Deluxe Reissue Announced For Saint
It had been a while since we’d heard anything from Saint. The band is still going strong, occasionally playing live and performing their all-time classics along with new tracks from their latest album, the excellent 2024 release “Immortal”, which we reviewed and discussed at the time.
Incidentally, the band took advantage of their performance at the “BMI Centener” in 2025 to release a DVD featuring their live set, titled “Immortalized At The BMI Live”, which is now available.
While it’s true that Richard Lynch had assured us in a previous article that the band has material ready for a new album, the fact is that 2026 marks the 40th anniversary of a legendary album that’s significant to Saint’s history; we are, of course, referring to “Time’s End”, an album featured in our discography; and given this anniversary, the band decided to release a new deluxe edition titled “Time’s End 40th Anniversary”, featuring two special collector’s editions.
Originally released in 1986, “Time’s End” captured Saint’s uncompromising traditional Heavy Metal at a pivotal moment in the development of the white metal scene. With Josh Kramer’s commanding vocals, John Mahan’s guitar work, Richard Lynch’s bass and songwriting foundation, and Brian Willis’s powerful drumming, Saint created an album whose forceful riffs, soaring vocals, and unmistakable Metal energy have endured for four decades.
“In the Night”, “Island Prisoner”, “Space Cruiser”, “Time’s End”, “Primed & Ready”, “Destroyers”, “Phantom of the Galaxy”, and “Steel Killer” helped solidify an album that would become an essential part of Saint’s legacy. The combination of melody, aggression, apocalyptic imagery, and classic ’80s Heavy Metal made “Time’s End” an album that Christian Metal fans would continue to discover and celebrate long after its original release.
But the finished album tells only part of the story. For this special 40th-anniversary collector’s edition, founding member Richard Lynch provides an exclusive 524-word retrospective that takes fans behind the scenes of the album’s creation. Lynch recalls the lineup changes surrounding the album, John Mahan’s departure and subsequent return, Dee Harrington’s stint with the band, the drummer issues that left Saint arriving at Falcon Studio without a drummer, and how engineer Dave Loar brought in Brian Willis to record the drum tracks.
And then there was the clock. Saint had a budget that gave them barely two weeks to record nine songs. From those circumstances emerged an album that would survive the uncertainty surrounding its creation and become one of the most iconic releases in Saint’s catalog.
Lynch’s retrospective ultimately takes the story nearly four decades further. As Saint prepared to return to Europe in 2025, another generation of musicians who had grown up as Saint fans was now helping to carry on this music. The songs created during a turbulent period in the band’s history continued to be rehearsed, performed, and celebrated nearly forty years later.
For this anniversary edition, Saint went even further. Two classics from “Time’s End” were re-recorded in 2025/2026 specifically for this expanded vinyl edition: “In the Night” which opens the album, and “Island Prisoner”, a fan favorite. These are not old demos or archival tracks that had previously been released. Saint revisited these songs decades later and re-recorded them, creating a unique musical bridge between 1986’s “Time’s End” and the current Saint, forty years later.
Now, Retroactive Records celebrates this iconic album with the vinyl edition collectors have been waiting for so long: a magnificent “Purple Majesty” vinyl, remastered audio, two newly re-recorded bonus tracks, an exclusive 524-word retrospective by Richard Lynch, vintage photographs, and collectibles, and—for the first time in the album’s 40-year history—a deluxe gatefold sleeve.
It’s a celebration worthy of an album whose title suggested an ending, while its legacy proved to be quite the opposite.
As for the CD edition, five songs have been re-recorded and added to the end of the CD: “In the Night”, “Island Prisoner”, “Through You”, “Primed & Ready” and an epic medley of “Phantom of the Galaxy / Steel Killer” lasting nearly nine minutes, plus a booklet containing the story of the album as told by Richard Lynch, along with photographs of the band and the well-known collector’s card that Retroactive Records includes with its deluxe editions.
It is a celebration worthy of an album whose title suggested an ending, while its legacy proved to be quite the opposite.
Of course, we’ll try to get our hands on a copy of this deluxe edition, and as soon as we have it, we’ll review and discuss it in our own unique style. In the meantime, here’s a home recording of one of Saint’s most recent live performances of the classic “In The Night”, and, of course, the band’s social media links and where to get this deluxe edition of a classic like “Time’s End”…
https://boonesoverstock.com/search?q=saint
https://www.facebook.com/saintband
