1160. Testament / The Ritual. 1992. 3.5/5

By the end of the first third of 1991, Testament had concluded their tour behind their fourth album “Souls of Black”, and from all reports were physically and mentally exhausted. In the five years since they had gained their first recording contract, they had barely had a break. Each album was written and recorded in and around the tours that were occurring to promote the previous one, and once it had been recorded they were back on the road to promote it. The continued success of all four albums, “The Legacy”, which was reviewed on this blog just last month, “The New Order”, “Practice What You Preach” and “Souls of Black”, meant growing success on the road, and bigger tours in bigger venues. Though they were not included in the theoretical ‘big four’ of the thrash scene, their success had climbed to such a point that they were being thought of as being the number 5.
But the band needed a break, and the time to properly write and record their follow up. They did this, taking almost seven months in the writing process while on their down time, and then almost another two months record it. And while there had been rumours of some disenchantment while on the road, which had been put down to over work and the need for a rest, one wonders if that was all to do with that. The approach of the music on “The Ritual” continued the trend of the band to move away from out-and-out-thrash metal, which had been the staple on their debut album, and incorporate a slower tempo to their songs, and in the search for a groove rather than speed and wailing solo bursts. In some ways this was ahead of their time, as it was a style that nu-metal and alternative metal bands began to take just a few years down the track. But at this time, with metal bands being influenced by what was happening with grunge in the music world, it still sounded like an even more radical path for the band to take than they had done so with “Souls of Black”.

There is only one song on this album that clocks in at under five minutes, so from the get go there is a danger that things could have been stretched too long. That’s only an observation I have come up with over the last few weeks in reliving the album, as I search for ways to best describe what happens on “The Ritual”. The opening of Skolnick’s instrumental “Signs of Chaos” into “Electric Crown” is terrific, everything seems to be working well and the album gets under way in a positive fashion. “So Many Lies” kicks in with Louie Clemente’s drums and you think that we are about to click into high gear again (I still do to this day, every time I listen to this album), but the tempo halts and winds back into a different gear. It’s a good enough song, but it is very unlike the songs that came on that debut album just five years earlier. “Let Go of My World” is more enthusiastic about its work, led by a satisfying guitar riff and Chuck’s more hardcore vocals. The title track of the album, “The Ritual”, is the longest song on the album, and is very much at that below-walking speed, moving between the quiet clear guitar to a harder vocal and some distortion on the instruments. Skolnick’s solo in the middle still reigns supreme and lifts the song out of the doldrums, and the song is still effective for the style. But is it the style you come to a Testament album for? “Deadline” settles nicely into a more mid-tempo groove and allows Chuck’s newly utilised vocal melodies to float along throughout the track, raising in speed only for Alex and Eric’s trading guitar solo’s. “As the Season’s Grey” is one of the album’s best tracks, which Chuck getting serious in the explanation of the songs vocals, where we really feel him singing for the first time on the album. “Agony” follows, and the speed of the intro brings hope to the heart that we will finally get a real thrash song on this album. Alas it is not to be, and while once again the song grows on you over time, the change in tempo is... disappointing. “The Sermon” which follows – the song, not me carrying on, or Testament preaching what they practice – follows the playbook of the album, with a tempo wound back with mostly inactive drums and the riff running underneath throughout.
“Return to Serenity” to me has always been Testament’s version of Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters”. But better. Slightly. It is everything that goes against the grain of what I felt a Testament song should be. It’s slowish, it’s moody, though again it gets saved by the brilliant guitar solo that threads through the middle of the song. Honestly, if this wasn’t a part of the track you’d be wondering just how this fits into the Testament discography. The closing track “Troubled Dreams” continues to tread water in the same way as many of the songs seem to do before it – the vocals from Chuck set in that whiny tone that seems out of character and place, and yet the song is saved with the introduction of the guitars in the middle doing their thing.

With my introduction to Testament having been “Practice What You Preach” and “Souls of Black”, I had come in at a middling phase of the band. Those albums weren’t as thrashy as their first two albums, they had a developed sound. But “The Ritual” had gone a step further, and I don’t know the full reasons why that was so. Certainly, as with all of these albums from 1992, the music landscape had shifted, and bands were either adapting to stay alive, or adapting because they felt they wanted to make that change. I can’t say for certain what was the case with Testament and this album, but change they did.
The change for me, when this album was released, was to feel as though perhaps the band was of the way out. It was a way I felt about many of the bands that did the same thing around the same time. In 1992 I thought “The Legacy” was an OK album, but it quickly found its way onto the shelves for a long stay, and it contributed to me not hearing the following three albums until well after their release. That was partly also due to my own turning to the European power metal scene.
Over the past three weeks I have listened to this over and over again, having just come off 2-3 weeks of listening to their debut album “The Legacy” for this same blog, and that has been an interesting experience. That debut is amazing, it is the epitome of thrash metal, and its contrast to “The Ritual” is somewhat astounding. My choice of album between these two is easy. But leaving that aside, and not comparing eras, there is still a lot to like on this album, as long as you are prepared to just let it be what it is and not try to project it to being something it is not.

Alex and Louie both left the band after this album and tour, Louie to a more stable job and life, and Alex to pursue music that was NOT thrash metal, which he did for a number of years with some success. His return to the band on their reformation album “The Formation of Damnation” in 2008 was part of the catalyst for the new great era of the band, one that continues today, just as his departure following this album closed off the first great era of the band.