RFI: Testament - 'The Gathering'

Honestly, given the pedigree, and your expectations, you'd probably find it disappointing. Most of them were just trying to pay bills by playing in Testament and didn't have much of a say in the creative process. The music doesn't approach the nature of ITP, which admittedly would have been neat since that is such a good album.

What the album really is is sort of a return to their thrashier sound, plus some of the post-thrash stylings a la "Low". It's not one of their better albums, though I like it. It's rather simple and straightforward, but doesn't really match the fire of their early days or the swagger of Low.

If you were looking for more death-metally Testament, Demonic was the way to go, although most Testament fans said that one sucked. I haven't heard it in full, so I can't say, though it didn't sound too thrilling.

I personally like Practice What You Preach, but The Legacy and The New Order are much better.

I'd put Testament squarely in the classic category for their first three albums (Legacy through Preach), because I find them all to be thrash classics. Yea, there are thrash acts I like better, admittedly, but these albums are fun, and I liked Chuck Billy's vocals. Somehow he managed to yell the same melody line in every song, but keep it interesting :)

As far as their later material, though, Low and The Gathering wouldn't be C or D. They're definitely not classic, but not terrible either. They're just there. Low is kinda fun, The Gathering is kinda fun, but neither is great.

As for the middle period albums like Ritual, Souls of Black, and stuff like that, I don't own any of them. Most fans consider them abberations, but I can't tell you if that's true or not.

What's death metally about King Diamond? I mean, of course in the early days Mercyful Fate were considered black metal (though revisionists such as myself now do not consider them anything but NWOBHM with darker lyrical scope), death metally is one thing he never was. Not even 80's death metal, which was marginally different in sound from what become modernly known as death metal.

I realize I truly ruined the whole slant of the original post, but, let me sum it up in one short paragraph:

No, Testament's The Gathering isn't similar to Death's Individual Thought Patterns, Lombardo and DiGiorgio were essentially just hired guns, and it's not all that death metally as compared to the album previous :)

i saw their best of compilation for 10 dollars today. worth picking up?

"D.N.R." is definitely a top ten Testament song. probably their best post-Demonic tune

lol didn't realize James Murphy nor Dave Lombardo went on tour for this album, musta disappointed a lot of fans, even though Lombardo was clearly doing it for a paycheck

This is such a strange thread.

even weirder is that I just now realized most of the OG posts are mine (I'm "eetface")