1202. Testament / The New Order. 1988. 4/5

With the release of their debut album “The Legacy” in 1987, an episode of which you can find in Season 2 of this podcast, Testament had stormed the US on coast-to-coast tours, blitzing through concerts and gigs and riding on the wave that was the thrash metal movement with their contemporaries Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Exodus. The success of the album and the subsequent touring meant that Testament was fast growing out of the support slot of touring and quickly becoming headliner material.
One thing the band hadn’t been aware of though was the terms of their contract with their recording company. They were still on tour promoting that debut album when they were informed that, in the terms of their agreement, they had to have a second album out, and pretty much within a year of that first album being released. As it was now January, that left them precious little time to write and record new material. The band had been doing some writing on tour, but now they found themselves under the pump and having to get what they had written up to speed, and then recorded as well.
Through January the band put down everything they had, and sent it off to their record company. However, the band still hadn’t completely read the terms under which they had been contracted, and an agreement stood that they had to have a minimum of 40 minutes of material on the album, and what they had submitted had come in under that, and somewhat significantly. With the album returned to the band in order to complete their dues, they decided to ‘fudge’ it a little. They added two instrumentals, they extended a few pieces in some of the songs to extend their length, and they recorded a cover version of the Aerosmith song “Nobody’s Fault”, all of which got the album to a length that was accepted by their bosses. It certainly wasn’t the best way of going about creating your sophomore album, but as always, the proof would be in the final product.

Without the pressures as described in the previous section in regards to the record companies demands, it is difficult to assess if this album would have been much different to what was eventually released. Obviously with more time the band may well have come up with better songs, or more songs of better material. I mean, I have no real problem with the version of “Nobody’s Fault” that they done here, and the instrumental features of “Hypnosis”, and “Musical Death (a Dirge)” which concludes the album is fine in their own way. But given some of the other absolute brilliant tracks that this album contains, I’ve often wondered what could have been achieved with more time and freedom than they had. Of course, perhaps this would also have inhibited the free rage and destruction that much of this album contains.
The way that the opening track “Eerie Inhabitants” kicks off has often made me wonder if it was influenced by the way songs like “Fight Fire with Fire” and “Battery” began those Metallica albums – with the quiet, unobtrusive, introspective start, that then kicks off into a blaze of guitar and crashing into the songs real beginning. Terrific. From here though we leap into the true awesomeness of this album. “The New Order” rips your head off, “Trial By Fire” again has an extended quieter guitar piece to start before launching into the song proper, and “Into the Pit” is exactly as you would imagine a song of this type to be like. These three songs show the amazing progress the band has made since their debut album, the heat and energy that comes with playing night after night on the road, and drawing in the joy and aggression of the crowds, and what THEY want from the band, which in this case is more heavier and faster guitars and powerful vocals and lyrics, along with guttural bass and driving drums. And all of that is showcased here, perfectly defining what Testament is all about at the start of their long journey.
With “Hypnosis” then acting as a break, the back half of the album creates more of the same, with “Disciples of the Watch” one of the best examples of Testament’s fury unleashed, before jumping into “The Preacher” and “A Day of Reckoning”. Like I said, the instrumental flurries that the band had to place on the album in order to get to their time constraints are fine, and they don’t' harm the album in any way, but there is little doubt that with a little more time, and the ability to add a couple more songs in instead of these breaks, it could have made this one of the all time classic thrash albums. Which, indeed, it actually is anyway.

As engrossed as I was with my burgeoning love of heavy metal at the time that this album was released, I didn’t actually get around to checking out Testament the band until the release of their album that followed this one, “Practice What You Preach”, before then grabbing “Souls of Black”, and off I went. To be honest, the exact timeline as to when I first heard and bought this album is a bit hazy, which my closest friends would have trouble believing. And yet it is true, the time I really heard this album is lost in the mists of time, which suggests it was probably either in the early 1990’s, or perhaps sometime in the late 1990’s. I don’t know. I’m sorry for everyone I’ve disappointed out there.
And much like with their debut album “The Legacy”, if only I’d had this at the time of its release, because I would have been screaming up the highway to uni, playing this at top volume and singing along, and it would have been awesome, because it is the perfect soundtrack for that part of life.
So beyond that, there isn’t much else to say. This period in thrash metal, with the kings of Metallica and Megadeth and Anthrax and Slayer, and the other bands like Exodus and Death Angel, was amazing times. And Testament stood head and shoulders with them, and this album is no different. Play it loud and play it proud, and just enjoy what screams out of the speakers at you.