Brotherhood of the Snake

When hearing about the lineup that would record "Brotherhood Of The Snake", it was easy to fall into premature admiration and speculation about a return to a form equal to "The Gathering" itself. Shortly after the release of "Dark Roots Of Earth", there was a change in the bassist position, so when Greg Christian left the band and Steve DiGiorgio appeared in his place, it may have occured on the back of my mind that Testament had gained one of the strongest line-ups in years, even though the previous two albums mostly used familiar patterns and did not go beyond a more structured formula, and the line-ups were not noticeably worse on them. Meanwhile, the reality in the case of "Brotherhood..." is - unfortunately - much less impressive. Because this album, compared to previous recordings, is a solid...downward slope.

Maybe not drastic, but for Testament it's too clearly felt to be ignored in general. Well, "Brotherhood Of The Snake" is a painful example that big names cannot guarantee anything classy, and the presence of such a great line-up simply has to be based on ideas full of creativity and real power, otherwise the result will be an artificially calculated product, that no one wants to remember or discuss in detail. On the "Brotherhood...", it looks exactly like I mentioned - as if the group wanted to please as many listeners as possible, and at the same time serve most of their proven patterns in a rather brainless and muddled version, instead of focusing on aggresiveness, sophisticated melodies and good balance between references to older albums. Of course, there is no huge step back here, but it's disappointing that there is very little that stands out from the album, and the skills and instrumental of this line-up featured on "Brotherhood..." are clearly visible far too rarely.

Well, the production aspects have been kept at a world-class level (although the sound itself can be irritating to my ear due to its sterility and plastic accretions) and technically, no one on the album makes any mistakes (especially the delicious performances of Alex Skolnick and Gene Hoglan). The problem, however, is that the album sounds like it was taken from a b-side generator of a modern Testament. Yes, there are very decent and non-irritating songs on the album like "Centuries Of Suffering", title track, "The Pale King" and "Stronghold", but there are no motifs in them that you would want to come back. To make matters worse, the issue of bass has been quite clearly omitted on this album - it's barely audible in the terms of the background of the other instruments, which, considering Steve DiGiorgio's abilities, seems like a mediocre joke from the rest of the band.

"Brotherhood Of The Snake" is therefore the first serious decline in form since the release of "The Ritual". The eleventh album by these Americans is not terrible or unacceptable, but it clearly lacks good, memorable songs, general fastness and a sense of references to their older albums. Almost in opposition to the content from "Dark Roots Of Earth".

Originally on A bit of subjectivism...in metal