Brotherhood of the Snake

Testament have considerably less respect among thrash fans and metalheads in general than most popular thrash acts. They haven't contributed much to the genre's development, didn't influence a lot of bands, and only their first album is universally agreed to be a classic.

You can't safely criticize Exodus's, Slayer's or even Morbid Saint's early work, since they are considered either "too influential to be taken down" or "revolutionary" enough to avoid criticism. This site is a perfect example how Testament is a perfect target for thrash elitists to rant about everything. I am writing these general points because I'm not sure if I will ever write another Testament review.

One thing people ignore is that being the most popular (2nd to Exodus?) American thrash band outside the big four, Testament showed lots of metal fans - including me - in their early stages that finding your own music pays off. Their music is more attractice to a beginner thrash band than to a veteran - thanks to their power/thrash subg-subgenre they incorporate a lot of melody in the vocals. Despite the hate they get here, I currently think I'll always enjoy their first 4-5 albums, Practice What You Preach for being one of the most melodic thrash can get without getting poppy, and the other three of the first four for the unique contrast between the blackened sound of the guitars and the melodic vocals.

With 2008's "The Formation of Damnation" the band returned to this style after the 1990s experimentation we're used to when it comes to thrash metal. I usually like when I find something similar to something I already liked, so I must have met this and the aforementioned album with pleasure. The problem is that Testament’s old work is already too alike sounding and sometimes indistinguishable from each other. There is a typical “Testament verse riff” that appears in at least 30 of their songs in various forms. Their style – except for their experimental period from Ritual to Gathering and their ballads – is locked around a strict set of requirements that leave little place for the songs to stand on their own without blending into the rest of the album/discography. Their distinctive style (yes, they have one, they aren’t Metallica clones) has been used to its full capacity by 1992, hence they tried out new ones. However, the “thrash revival” of the 2000s dictated more bands to give up their creativity and create worthless albums that don’t add anything to the metal canon.

“The Formation of Damnation” – while not going on new ground and recycling old songs – had something that told it apart from Testament’s early works: the death growls, which weren’t executed in the best way possible to say the least but at least showed some intention to set a different style to the record. Their next album “Dark Roots of Earth” is considerably different from classic Testament in arrangements, riffing style and even song lengths, and their upcoming album is planned to focus on blast beats. They didn’t seem to have any intention of making “Brotherhood of the Snake” unique from the rest of their discography, or from any other 21st century thrash album for that matter.

Unoriginality and the lack of novelty being the main flaws, the songs suffer from predictability and having no unexpected moments, which are more important in my book than heaviness or speed. For example, the breakdown of the title track featuring growled vocals and the same main riff accompanied by a 0-0-0 one seems to come from typical metalcore clichés. ALL ten songs start by an extremely short fading-in, and none of them go past the verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo-chorus structure like “Throne of Thorns” did. The production of the last 3-4 Testament albums doesn’t fit the rawness of thrash at all and makes them sound like metalcore.

I won’t be too generous giving ratings, so 37% indicates that there is still something positive to tell. First, they tried to keep a bit of diversity between the songs, which doesn’t go beyond altering between groove-oriented mid-tempo and faster numbers, but at least more than what Vortex’s “Thrash is Alive” could say. The lineup is maybe the best of the band so far having Steve DiGiorgio and Gene Hoglan in the rhythm section. Some of the standout moments include the choruses of “The Pale King” and “Seven Seals” delivering the melodic power/thrash the band is known for in a less generic way than the rest, there are two fairly memorable riffs before the solo of “Seven Seals” and in the intro to “The Number Game”. All this said, all of these little nice moments together couldn’t even make up material for one song together. Considering the tendency between “The Formation of Damnation” and this album (“Dark Roots of Earth” might be more fresh only because of the lineup change) I expect the 2020 album to have even more lazy songwriting and even more average riffing and have only a little hope that it will follow in the footsteps of their penultimate effort. I recommend this album to metalcore/alternative rock fans who have a slight interest in what thrash metal sounds like, and to thrash fans who have pretty low expectations once a record is from their preferred genre and prefer polished works over raw-spirited ones.