The Hidden City
The
eighties and the turn of 80/90’s were very good years for Testament musicians -
many gigs, live shows, exhausting tours, thrash metal was the king undeniably.
One year has passed (“The Ritual” 5th album, 1992) and the band
prepared another effort, this time live mcd or ep called “Return to the
Apocalyptic City”. Unfortunately thrash metal started to rot, the bands began
to seek another musical dimensions, the labels found another fashion called grunge
and forgot about the thrash outfits. In these times Testament recorded six
songs (30 minutes), but only two of them were in original line-up. To put it
simply, this is very strange piece of metal. Firstly, why the band didn’t
decide to record full length live album? I know that the problems with members
(Skolnick and Clemente left the band after “The Ritual” session) didn’t make it
easy. That was my question in those
days, of course I couldn’t foresee the 1995 year and their mighty “Live at the
Fillmore” show. When it comes to the selection of the songs, there is nothing
special. All right, one can say about “Reign of Terror”, the song that missed
the full length albums in the glorious past, but it is recorded on “Live at
Eindhoven” (Mlp 1987) and on the single “Trial by Fire” (1998). The next
strange and definitely awful and disastrous thing is the front cover. It makes
me really sick when I compare it with excellent pictures from “Practice What
You Preach”, “Souls of Black” or “The Ritual”. I remember I bought this stuff
on tape, shortly after releasing of “The Ritual”, and at that time it made a
sense. Now I think it was just a greed, thrash was dying in the mainstream and
Atlantic wanted to earn some money.
Musically –
no surprises can be found. Production and realization of live sounds is
impeccable. Testament looks like a thrashing-crushing beast devouring the
silence, even if there is a new line-up on the live songs (Alvelais on lead guitar
and Bostaph on drums, both ex-Forbidden). The thing which is really worth the
trouble is “Reign of Terror” mentioned just above. This song is a classic piece
of amazing thrash: furious tempo, excellent riffs (written by Peterson and
Ramirez) with fine slow-down in the middle and paralyzing solo lead – that’s the
way of metal of my favourite thrash crew. The rest of the songs are well known
for the maniacs, everything runs very fast. The last song “Return to Serenity”
taken from the previous album is shortened version (radio edit) and it didn’t
work with the rest here, of course it is a commercial trick to get a better
selling.
Perversely this
stuff is entitled “Return to the Apocalyptic City”. So I ask: where the hell is
this ‘apocalyptic city’??? Where is the best track from Testament’s legendary
debut album??? There is no any return as well there is no Apocalyptic City! This
is the next very strange and nonsensical thing. So if I have to sum all the
things up: wrong title of the release, wrong front cover, excellent music and
the greed of the label. For me - as the die-hard Testament supporter - it is
just an interesting small thing because of Alvelais on guitar, for the others:
useless and forgettable stuff. Fortunately the band attacked with a new album
(“Low” 1994) and the absolutely devastating live in 1995, both pure thrash
performances in the really hard times. Luckily it made all the sores felt into
oblivion very quickly.
55/100
-Tlacaxipehualiztli
(previously written for Encyclopaedia Metallum, on February, 2012, now modified a bit)
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