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Testament - Good Or Bad + Why?


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Re: Testament - Good Or Bad + Why? I agree with Murph, The Legacy, The New Order, and Souls of Black are their best. Practice What You Preach was really pedestrian sounding in the riffing and songwriting departments, and they've been doing pretty mediocre albums since Souls of Black. They're not bad efforts, but they really thrived on their melodic riffs and lead work early on, in addition to having Chuck's great vocal presence, both of which were more or less lost starting with The Ritual.

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Re: Testament - Good Or Bad + Why? The Gathering is an amazing album - Dave Lombardo's drumming is fantastic, the riffs are powerful, the production great, Chucks a powerhouse. New Order is a classic, I enjoy Practice What you Preach in parts, I think the production on Souls of Black is a bit ropey. Low is cool, but mixed bag. I've only heard Formation a couple times, but what I heard I liked. Ritual is a bit soft for my liking.

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Re: Testament - Good Or Bad + Why? Everything they recorded in the 80's suffered from lack luster production. They seemed to suffer from it more than a lot of other bands. I have a problem listening to their 80's material as a result. Bland music with shit production = pass. I remember reading a lot about 'The Gathering' and how it was "THE" album of the decade. I heard it almost a decade later and laughed at how bad it was. No where near the hype it got. I think if you put any member of Slayer in an established group it's going to generate a LOT of positive hype regardless of how good it really is.

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Chuck's voice has always been one of the strongest elements of the band's sound, his thrash vocals are excellent, and his death vocals aren't bad either. The problem with their albums that feature his death vocals is that they're not very well written groove metal albums, and while Testament have never been strong riff writers, Alex's leads were the other strongest element in their sound, which were absent after Souls of Black (I know he was on The Ritual too, but I try to forget that that album even exists).

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Re: Testament - Good Or Bad + Why?

The Dark Roots of Earth album is very cool!And Apocalyptic City's solo is damn awesome...
I agree, this was a mad album! Loved animal magnetism as soon as I heard it and played it over and over again. wish I had the CD though, I downloaded it and never got around to buying a hard copy. Sent from my GT-I9100T using Tapatalk
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The Ritual has an amazing guitar tone, and had some of my favorite Testament songs like Deadline, Return to Serenity, and Electric Crown. Low is pretty cool as well; the vibe of that album is very 90s but still thrash. I kind of see it as what late nineties pop metal could have become. I listened to First Strike Still Deadly a while ago, and I was surprised how good it was, considering when it was released. The sad thing is that it's not even mentioned on Wikipedia.

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I quite like the title track from the last album (Dark Roots), and that Electric Crown track.

But in general I'll vote 'bad', because I think they're a bit mediocre.

Absolutely. They've always been lacking in the riff department, and were really only relevant because of some great lead work and vocals on their early albums.

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