The Gathering

The Gathering is Testament's hard-hitting comeback from their directionless mid-90s era. While the textured and "radio-friendly" groove metal of Low was moderately successful, Demonic is commonly regarded as the band's major "flop album". Its follow-up, The Gathering, is interesting, because it's a record people can't seem to make up their minds on. Overall however, it's a decent comeback and I really like it.

The sound here continues the death metal experimentation of Demonic, but could also be compared to a way more aggressive, less accessible Low. A lot of the faster paced thrashing of their early days returns here, too, making it a somewhat unique take on the "return to form" concept. The songs all seem to fall into their own categories. Songs like bookends "D.N.R (Do Not Resuscitate)" and "Fall of Sipledome" burn with a face-melting fury that competes with, and arguably bests that of their debut album. Others, like "Down for Life" move with a pretty fast pace, but seem to focus more on being catchy and being as fun as they are aggressive. "True Believer" is probably the slowest track, and I find it mediocre. I don't normally have a problem with thrash bands writing slower material, but this one isn't very interesting to me, because it's kind of a generic to make a catchy song, like something they wrote last minute.

I like The Gathering for being fucking brutal. It has a lot of faster moments that hearken back to the band's early days, and this is what makes it a more "normal" album in Testament's catalogue than an album like Demonic, but it also does a nice job of being catchy and fun to listen to. I like stuff that makes me want to bang my head, and this does a good job of it.