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Testament - Dark Roots Of Earth


MacabreEternal

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Testament are a nearly band for me. Nearly solid enough to challenge the Big 4. Nearly consistent enough to justify serious investment in their back catalogue and nearly exciting enough to want to go and see live. None of the above have happened as they never quite achieved the legendary status of say Exodus, Anthrax, Slayer or managed to produce a "Game Over" style classic like Nuclear Assault. Sheer curiosity brought them from my "to investigate further" list into a purchase of their last effort "Dark Roots Of Earth". Notable for the guitar playing prowess of Skolnick and Peterson first of all "Dark Roots.." doesn't just knock on the door and await your response. It takes the door off it's hinges with it's savagery and full frontal attack, check out opener "Rise Up" with Hoglan's solid drumming and Billy's almost arrogant vocal delivery backed up by chopping riffs aplenty. The band make good use of melody throughout the album most notably on "Cold Embrace" which is the slowest track on offer but overall the feeling is one of being treated to a proper heavy metal album. On the the downside the album is a couple of tracks too heavy (the title track and "Man Kills Mankind" aren't essential) but the version I have has 3 great covers - Queen's "Dragon Attach", Scorpions "Animal Magnetism" and Iron Maiden's "Powerslave" are all respectable efforts that do the originals justice. A few tweaks short of excellent but still a very solid outing from one of the elder statesmen of thrash.

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They're a band which failed to produce enough memorable albums to be placed alongside their contemporaries (such as Overkill and Exodus), lacked the rawness of bands such as D.R.I or Hallow's Eve, and didn't have the outright violence of bands like Dark Angel or Kreator. As such they are rightfully condemned to eternal dwell in the shadows, a footnote on the legacy of thrash metal, and nothing more.

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I struggle with Overkill for some reason. I have never been able to put finger on it but we just don't get on. I loved Exodus with their mix of straight up thrash and tongue in cheek, not afraid to have a laugh edge also. "Pleasure To Kill" is one of my favourite albums of all time - it's so brutal and harsh, everything good thrash should be. Early Anthrax is noteworthy although they are inconsistent on the whole, same with Annihilator.

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Testament were always the slowest and most melodic of the Bay Area thrash bands of the 80's. They were great at mixing mid-paced riffs with strong melodies and solos early on, but the riffs started to falter by the time of Practice AFAIC. They picked some up some steam again with Souls of Black, only to fuck it up with The Ritual. Their albums without Skolnick are okay, but are more groovy efforts that definitely could have used his lead skills. Since their return, I've enjoyed Skolnick's guitar work and Billy's older style vocals again, but everything just sounds so modern, not like Testament anymore. Just those same sort of chuggy lowest common denominator riffs that every modern metal band overuses, but the strong vocals and leads to help to make up for it.

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  • 3 weeks later...

If Testament had split up after Souls Of Black I wonder if people would actually give them a little more credit. Then again three or four solid albums should never be enough for a band to be considered great which is why I am always staggered Metallica are so revered by so many metalheads. Don't get me wrong I like their first four albums but Metallica are far from the masters of thrash metal people would have you believe

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If Testament had split up after Souls Of Black I wonder if people would actually give them a little more credit. Then again three or four solid albums should never be enough for a band to be considered great which is why I am always staggered Metallica are so revered by so many metalheads. Don't get me wrong I like their first four albums but Metallica are far from the masters of thrash metal people would have you believe
I lol'ed when my friend said Metallica have been solid all the way through. He had listened to St Anger too.
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sorry I just threw up in my mouth a little. If we're talking bands consistently solid Metallica don't feature at all, they're all but unlistenable after Justice. This seems to be the way thrash in general goes in general. Other then Vektor I can't think of any thrash bands who have released only good albums but Vektor only has two so judgement must be reserved for at least three more albums

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  • 2 months later...

I've always been a pretty big Testament fan. My gateway was The Gathering, and I was extremely impressed with The Formation of Damnation. This new album seemed to be lacking the bite that the previous release had. Decent enough though. One thing ill always give Testament, they've never put out their own flop album like St. Anger or Risk.

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It's interesting that you mentioned this album. Just a year or two ago I was in the record store. Sometimes I have an album in mind and at other times I suffer from withdrawal of "not-enough-albums" so I just go look around and see what I find. I was in the "T"'s and saw Testament- Dark Roots of Earth. My first thought was "Wow, that cover looks really cool." I then realized that I had never listened to Testament before. I knew how big they are, I knew the name, and I knew how much people talked about how "they should replace Metallica." With that, I decided to buy my first Testament album. Remember, I had never listened to them before, so I had no idea what I was in for. My first time listening through I was absolutely blown away. I was driving around and had the stereo cranked up. When I first heard the opening to Rise Up, all I could think was, "damn." I was singing along shouting WAR! back to Chuck whenever he said "Rise Up!" It certainly made me feel like I was a part of the song, and made listening to it so much more fun. As for the rest of the album, it was the greatest thing ever. My opinion may be biased since I heard Dark Roots before I heard anything else. Since then, I have revered Dark Roots of Earth as my favorite Thrash album. Everything about the album is perfect. Sometimes I will critique an album for having bad drumming, other times I will notice mismatched vocals, but with Dark Roots there is nothing I can complain about. I just find it interesting that both of us picked it up without knowing much about Testament and as it sounds, blown away. I will leave you with this tip, if you ever see an album with a cool cover, buy it.

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Artwork isn't the be all and end all, to be perfectly blunt there are a plethora of bands with great artwork who suck out loud. Cannibal Corpse are a good example. I stand by my previous statement Testament are average for the most part. Now granted they do have some pretty cool stuff going on at least in their early days but that doesn't mean they're this great band that are always overlooked for some unfathomable reason. They're overlooked because they haven't released enough quality music.

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