If there’s any heavy metal band that really deserves special
\nrecognition for toughing it out without sacrificing their vision or
\nstyle, it would be Bay-area rockers Testament. With their frontman
\nChuck Billy guiding the band through several line-up changes (and,
\nrecently, through a few different labels), the band has defied the
\npronouncement of metal’s death earlier this decade and have kept
\nreleasing albums that haven’t strayed far from their roots.<\/p>\n
With the upcoming release of their latest album
\nThe Gathering<\/i> (which is scneduled for release on June 8),
\nTestament delivers another solid effort that shows their dedication
\nto their craft – but still falls a little shy of the highwater mark
\nof such albums as
\nThe Ritual<\/i>.<\/p>\n
(One note to my readers: I’m working off an advance copy of the
\ndisc. The track listing for this disc on CDNow shows the disc to
\nhave 12 tracks; my copy has 11. If, when it comes out, you wonder
\nwhy I didn’t talk about “Hatred Divine” in this review, it’s
\nbecause it’s not on my copy.)<\/p>\n
The band – Billy, guitarists Eric Peterson and James Murphy (who
\nseems to be on everything involving a heavier guitar sound these
\ndays), bassist Steve DiGiorgio and former Slayer drummer Dave
\nLombardo – still have an intensity level that could bubble the
\npaint on a new car. Lombardo’s frantic double-bass work (which
\nhasn’t slowed down a beat, by the way) seems to be the perfect
\nmatch for this band, and it gives the music – which has never had a
\nproblem with power – a new lease on life.<\/p>\n
What is interesting, though, is Billy’s approach to the vocals.
\nGranted, on recent releases like
\nDemonic<\/i> he’s gone towards more of a death-metal style of
\nvocals. On
\nThe Gathering<\/i>, he seems to want to give equal time to the
\ndeath-metal growls and more plaintive singing (as heard on tracks
\nlike “Down For Life”). It’s just my personal preference, but I
\nwonder why Billy would want to hide behind the guttural growls when
\nhe has one of the better singing voices for a band of this
\nstyle.<\/p>\n
The guitar work of Peterson and Murphy is outstanding, though I
\noften found myself hoping that they’d launch into some classic
\nguitar pyrotechnics. Instead, they choose to let their solos be
\nmore substance than style – and, again, this is a matter of
\npersonal preference. Though I’ve often said it doesn’t matter how
\nfast a guitarist plays, sometimes the mood and the moment all but
\nbeg for the controls to be turned to full shred.<\/p>\n
Tracks like “DNR (Do Not Resuscitate)”, “True Believer,”
\n“Legions Of The Dead” and “Sewn Shut Eyes” all prove that Testament
\nhas continued to improve as a band since their debut on the scene –
\nbut they have yet to equal their finest moment, which I happened to
\nthink was
\nThe Ritual<\/i>. This is, by no means, saying that
\nThe Gathering<\/i> is bad; any album that gets my three-year-old
\nprancing around with her toy guitar and annoys her mother at the
\nsame time is great in my book. But it’s almost like Testament have
\nfound themselves trying to top their best work, and while they’ve
\ncome close (as on this album), they still have fallen a little
\nshort.<\/p>\n
This isn’t something that Testament should be seriously
\nconcerned about, at this point. After all,
\nThe Gathering<\/i> is another collection of well written and
\nexecuted songs, and they have kept something that not a lot of
\nmetal bands from the same period can claim: their dignity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27735,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7459],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-39114","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-testament","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39114"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39114"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}