Album Review: Testament, "The Ritual"

A coming of age for TESTAMENT is The Ritual. Produced impeccably by Tony Platt and engineered by Nigel Green, the whole album is an eye-opener that says 'maturity' for a rock band that isn't cloning 38 SPECIAL or BOB SEGER anymore

Last year METALLICA set the seal on changes for a number of their peers, and Testament are no different. The Ritual features no outright neck breakers, but two sides of well-crafted music. Well in evidence are some very eastern-tinged sounds, especially in the title track.

Typically the album builds from opening instrumental "Sign of Chaos" and into the growling "Electric Crown," with guitarists Alex Skolnick and Eric Peterson highly profiled in the mix.

Platt's done a good job on smoothing off the rough edges of the guitar attack and adds a gutsy twang to Greg Christian's bass signature throughout the album. Standout cuts include "As the Season's Grey," with its fade-in/fade-out midsection, "So Many Lies," and "The Ritual" itself.

In fact, there's not much filler material in here at all. If there's any nagging doubts to this, then they are over the assistance seemingly given to Chuck Billy's voice to obtain, in some cases, a hard-edged Syd-Barrett-type descent into what are some excellently arranged songs, redolent of VOIVOD at times. Methinks this is what Testament could really be all about. I'm impressed.

Grade A

Alan McCrorie
Riff Raff
July 1992

Revenge...?

RIFF RAFF was a legendary rock magazine based in London in the late 1980s and 1990s. Unfortunately, it was just too R n' R for its own good. A genuine working class rock mag, written, edited, and translated into 16 European languages in a drug-n-Jack-Daniels-fuelled haze, often on the back of motorbikes, with spell checking by our staff of attentive rock bimbos (chosen purely for their blondeness and big knockers), it soon fell behind more nerdy and woke publications like Q, Kerrang, Mojo, Metal Hammer, and Horse & Hound. This website is an archive and kind of shrine dedicated to the writing of its greatest writers... BUT it is also a place for new talent to rise and shine. So, don't be shy! In the words of the immortal Fly, send in your "news, blues, and reviews" - and even interviews if you've got the balls to buttonhole your heroes!