Coming off their previous album “The Ritual”, Testament began to feel the winds of change as it were. The first strike was the departure of lead guitarist Alex Skolnick, who decided that he wanted to experience other sides of music than just the thrash metal scene he had been a part of for almost a decade. Not long after, drummer Louie Clemente also left the band. This left holes in the framework that had to be filled. The first addition was guitarist James Murphy who had played with Death, Cancer and Obituary (and yes, those are band names not just a really bad run with his health), and drummer John Tempesta, who had played on the previous three albums for Exodus and with other solid work on his resume.
These two additions, along with what was happening around them in the music world, set up and interesting writing session when they converged to begin preparing for the new album. And while those thrash roots would remain on the music on this album, there is a more diverse sound once again bleeding through into their music. But while it had been an advancing maturity in the music that had been heard on the last two albums in particular, here there influences of the growing onset of alternative metal, but even more so of a death metal and groove metal combination.
Chuck Billy’s vocals take a decidedly more deep throated aspect on “Low”, as the band’s direction follows the lead of the musical progression the world had taken at the time this was recorded. There are still those elements of the band’s thrash metal roots on this album, but in a decidedly different tone. The changing of lead guitarist from Alex Skolnick to James Murphy was no doubt a major influence, and his contributions to the writing on the album does show the direction he was looking to have the guitars at least travel. And this wasn’t such a bad thing. Most of the world’s leading thrash bands had made some technical adjustments to their sound by the middle of the decade, finding their own voice that was a closer fit to what exactly was coming at them.
“Low” is opened up by the title track, which covers the full range of Chuck Billy’s vocals, opening up in the style all fans know from the early albums, before slowing descending through his improving lower range. Musically it's a great start as well. “Legions (in Hiding)” continues in the same direction, showcasing the excellent drumming from Tempesta, who has a great drum sound on this album.
“Hail Mary” is a ripping song, straight from the band’s salad days but with the new sound skewing the way it sounds. The pace of the song increases from the opening tracks, the trading solos from Petersen and Murphy tie in nicely through the middle of the track, and Chuck charges out of the speakers. John Tempesta on drums is also particularly effective here. This is followed by “Trail of Tears”, another excerpt from the Testament acknowledgement that they apparently have to throw in what is effectively a power ballad into the mix. And it sounds great, and Chuck shows that he can still sing in that clear and higher than regular register even at this stage of their career. Interestingly though, even though it sounds like a song being written for commercial radio airplay, this was not released as a single from the album. Yeah, there is a bit of that chasing Metallica again about this track, much as there was on “The Ballad” (the song title in this case) from the “Practice What You Preach” album. This builds nicely throughout and is performed excellently, along with the dual solos that takes the song to its crescendo. At six minutes long though, this outstays its welcome. “Shades of War” is a perfect example of a song that sounds like it should have come from the bands earliest incarnation, but played in that 90’s era mid- fast tempo instead of an out-and-out thrash metal triple time tempo. Even today I wait for it to break out at that 1987 speed, and it does not. Still a great song, but I believe could have been so much better. Then we jump into “P.C.” which is a short sharp jolt of a similar variety.
“Dog Faced Gods” is just a full-on death metal song. It is such a change from what you expect from this band, that it is as shocking as it is brilliant. Chuck Billy’s vocals go full rogue and reach depths that you just would not have expected them to ever reach. I love the story of how this song eventuated, with the band’s record company asking for an album that sounded alternative. The band took this to mean they wanted an alternative sound, a different sound from what they had produced before, and produced this song, and said this is how the album is going to sound. The record company said no no, we want it to have a sound like the alternative bands that are prevalent right now in the world, and the response they got was, this is what the album is, take it or leave it. Eric Petersen said in an interview in 2013, “'Dog Faced Gods' gave us a whole different perspective of what Testament was all about; we were now entering the realm of Swedish black metal, we were flirting with that vibe and mixing it with our stuff. It took on a whole new vibe; by the time we got to The Gathering we reinvented ourselves.". Fantastic. This then bleeds straight... “All I Could Bleed”, ripping along with more Chuck Billy vocal awesomeness, now (mostly) from his great early thrash era, and dominated by the fantastic guitar solos through the middle of the song that rise this to a level of brilliance. Another great song by Testament that defies the era that they recorded it in.
The (mostly) instrumental “Urotsukidoji” is next and is just brilliant, dominated by the fan-bloody-brilliant bass guitar solo from Greg Christian, who just rips things apart in a style not heard since Cliff Burton was dominating the stage. This track co-written with Peterson is a gem, and while Christian’s bass is the star, the trading guitars of Peterson and Murphy, and the hammering drums from Tempesta, make for a seriously awesome track. The segue into “Chasing Fear” is perfect, and here again we are treated to another awesome track, transcending the fast and heavy into the mystical and radical. “Ride” charges on the back of the heavy thumping of Tempesta drums with the precision riffing from Peterson and Murphy, another hard core song that packs a lot in to its 3 minutes. The album then concludes with the instrumental outro “Last Call”, a somewhat tame end to what has been a raucous album.
I have always loved “Low” as an album. It has a great sound, and with the drumming of John Tempesta and guitaring of James Murphy, the band is set up for the time this was recorded. Both add a real oomph to the album that is exacerbated by Chuck’s growing direction with his vocals, and the evolvement of Eric Peterson on guitar and Greg Christian on bass. It is actually an evolutionary step the band has taken. There are still those songs that are drawn straight from their salad days, but overall the band has incorporated the best parts of that time in heavy metal and coloured them as Testament and made their own variation of it.
I didn’t hear this album until a few years after it was released. As I have mentioned along the way here on this podcast, the years between 1994 and 1996 were a time in my life where a lot went on, and in the case of music and bands and albums, a lot of them got missed in that evolving turmoil. So for “Low”, it wasn’t until four years after its release that I first heard the album, and not for the first time during that decade, I realise that I had missed a trick. Because from the outset, this album struck a chord with me.
Over the past three weeks I have listened to this album quite a lot again, and am again thankful that I started doing this podcast, as it has once again proven its worth to me, by getting me to listen to an album I haven’t thought of in a while, and in the process rediscovering the joy and brilliance of it. With so many options out there to listen to, new and old, albums of worth will get lost in the busyness of life, and this for me has been one of them. The chance to once again bathe in the joy of “Low” has been more than worth the time I have invested in it over the recent few weeks, to now bring it to you. Perhaps you won’t feel the same way about it that I do. That’s okay, I have enough love for it for the both of us.
The role changing was not yet over for Testament, with Tempesta leaving to join White Zombie once the album was completed, while both Murphy and Christian quit the band at the end of the touring cycle. It left Billy and Peterson as the only remaining members, who decided to end the band... but the story doesn’t quite end there...
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