France's Agressor were playing death/thrash in the mid-80s (they formed in 1986), long before it became the saturated genre it is today. Rebirth clocks in at nearly two hours and that's because it is a compilation of material, including a remastered version of their Symposium of Rebirth album from 1994 and some demo versions, rough mixes and the likes. As with most compilations, the album is not too cohesive (save for the remastered album part, of course) and it's a bit of a rollercoaster sound-wise, especially when you hit the demo and rough mix versions where the sound quality is, understandably, lesser than the remastered tracks. That's kind of annoying but expected. The band's style is really good for the genre, especially when you consider that they were doing this long before there was a large pool of influences to get them started. Their music is heavy for the most part but still rooted enough in traditional heavy meta and thrash to carry a healthy dose of melody here and there. I found that Rebirth is too long, even for a compilation, but your mileage may vary and it's, of course, easy to stick only to the remastered album. It's certainly a good way to get a large sample of what these pioneers are capable of.