Review Summary: I reckon that The Gathering is one of the most unexpected (but welcome) comebacks in heavy metal history...
...right up there alongside such classics as Heaven And Hell, Painkiller, and Brave New World; you see, while I've never, ever been huge on Testament, even I have to admit that the second half of the 90's, at for least a while, was particularly unkind to the upstart bunch of Bay Area thrashers. After (the underrated) The Ritual came out in '92. the band's "classic" line-up splintered up and set sail for other pastures, and although Chuck Billy and Eric Peterson stayed aboard the entire time as vocalist & guitarist, respectively, they had to continually find new members to fill the other positions, and I believe these revolving door line-ups severely damaged the band's chemistry, and was the reason for the clunky experimentations with Pantera-style half thrash on Low (I'm not going to say "groove metal"), as well as with traditional death metal on Demonic.
So, knowing all that, and considering that The Gathering brought yet another wave of line-up changes, the end result shouldn't have been any better, right? Yeah, you do have Death's Steve DiGiorgio and Slayer's Dave Lombardo on bass 'n drums duty here, but the presence of Greg Christian & Gene Hoglan as Low's bassist/Demonic's drummer didn't save those records, so why would The Gathering be any different? Fortunately, it
is a different story from the previous two albums, with Testament creating the darkest, fastest, heaviest material of their career, and achieving a sound chemistry among the members that's somehow tighter than what most of the albums with the "classic" line-up had, believe it or not.
When opener "D.N.R. (Do Not Resuscitate)" fades in with foreboding orchestra strings(!) and Lombardo's subtle-but-primal percussion work, you can already tell that Testament won't be half-assing this one, and when Eric Peterson's crunchy, crushing riffs & Lombardo's incredibly intense, groovy drumming come crashing in (the synergy between the two here is outstanding), your initial faith in this new Testament is richly rewarded. While Dave's drumming isn't
quite as awesome as on, say, Seasons In The Abyss, it isn't too far off either, and Chuck Billy's guttural, death growl-tinged roaring is just the icing on the cake. Overall, with "D.N.R.", not only is Testament ironically playing faster than most of the stuff from their "pure thrash" heyday, but they're also writing much more interesting, smoothly-flowing material than the awkward "Low"/"Demonic" songs, and it's a pretty good preview of what's to come on the rest of the album.
Again, it's simply a delight to hear the band sounding this
alive again, and though "Do Not Resuscitate" is one of the obvious high points of the album, satisfying headbangers like "Down For Life", "Riding The Snake", and the mid-tempo, groove-heavy "Careful What You Wish For" (among others) all manage to keep the quality quite high throughout the record. Although I do wish every song here could've been as amazing as "D.N.R.", the blisteringly-fast "Legions Of The Dead", or the apocalyptically-climatic closer "Fall Of Sipledome" (which is my favorite Testament song), The Gathering as a whole is still a damn satisfying comeback for the band.
So, going back to traditional thrash metal tempos, keeping the semi-death growls from "Low"/Demonic", and adding in some darkness to the mix proved to be a very natural, very right choice for Testament, and though I'm afraid that doing this one may have burned the band out for good (considering how coma-inducingly boring The Formation Of Damnation was), at least if this is the bang that the
good Testament went out on, it's a hell of a one.
