Revisiting: Testament's The Ritual
Welcome to a new series where I revisit some albums that hold immense importance to me. They might be the album that made me fall in love with a band or a record that introduced me to a genre I hadn't previously explored. Or it could just be something I really loved and played a lot. The goal: To see how these records hold up. How do they hit me now?
First, a couple of ground rules:
1. Studio albums only. No compilations, live albums or greatest hits packages. It's too easy to fall for a band when you're only hearing their best stuff or hearing them with an audience reacting to them. Therefore, don't expect to see Queen or Creedence Clearwater Revival here.
2. Sooner or later, I will get to albums I still regularly listen to, like Pinkerton, Rust in Peace or Angel Dust. In those cases, I'll do my best to listen with unbiased ears. But you know how it is with something you have an emotional attachment to. Objectivity will not be possible.
Ok. Let's roll.
That's where The Ritual fits. Released as grunge was taking over the music world and metal was falling out of favor with tastemakers, The Ritual is a hard step towards a more radio- and MTV-friendly sound. The difference is notable from early on. After a brief instrumental introduction, the record kicks into Electric Crown. It's a driving tune with some good riffing, but when vocalist Chuck Billy comes in on the first verse, he's singing in a much lower register, almost crooning the lyrics. His trademark metal bellow enters on the chorus, but it's a little disconcerting to be able to sing along with a Testament song without thrash your vocal cords.
But the thing that feels the most off here is the pacing of the album. Most of the songs have distinct midtempo pacing and sometimes The Ritual really plods. That's true for the second full song on the album, So Many Lies. Its triple-chug guitars riffs and doomy feel are pretty cool, but the song takes too long to get going and feels sluggish and tired. It's a six-plus-minute song and I feel like I'm done with it after about 2 1/2 minutes.
This Mid-Tempo Slog Syndrome infects other songs on the record. As the Seasons Grey is another 6-minute-plus epic that fails to raise your pulse. Same with Let Go of My World and Deadline. Too much time spent mucking about with overlong intros which only serves to keep you from getting to the good parts of the songs for too long. And unfortunately, "the good parts" are listenable, yet rarely excellent.
That's not to say the record's a total loss. Electric Crown kicks pretty hard. As does Agony and the album-closing Troubled Dreams. The title track is an interesting take on the metal ballad, offering some serious creep factor the clean arpeggios that hang over the verse sections. As good as this tune is, it gets blown out of the water by the truly epic Return to Serenity. Featuring one of the greatest solos ever from axe master Alex Skolnick, Serenity fuses some cool heavy riffs with haunting melodic passages. When you're talking about thrash ballads (a term I feel a little queasy typing out), this tune is one of the best.
Add to this that The Ritual doesn't feel nearly as removed from Testament's classic sound as some Metallica (cough... Load... cough...) and Megadeth (what the fuck was Risk, Dave?) efforts do. While Megadeth turned sharply into arena rock and Metallica went full-on super-grunge, The Ritual feels more like a classic metal record than a thrash record. But it's still a metal record.
And Testament wouldn't stay away from the heavy shit as long as these other guys would. The Ritual is the sound of a band having issues. Soon after this record, drummer Louie Clemente left the band and Skolnick exited to play with his jazz trio and Trans-Siberian Orchestra (among others), though he'd return to the band in 2005. After Skolnick's exit, the band cranked up the gain and went in an almost death metal direction on albums like Low and Demonic. Add to that a string of excellent latter-day records beginning with The Formation of Damnation in 2008.
For me, The Ritual was really the record that cemented my love for Testament. I already owned, and dug, previous releases like The New Order and Practice What You Preach, but my love for Testament lagged behind the likes of Anthrax, Megadeth and even Overkill. The Ritual changed all that. It was the soundtrack to many excursions to rent videos or annoy cowboys on Main Street. It convinced me to dig deeper into the band's earlier work. It illustrated Eric Peterson's skill as a riff writer and Billy's prowess as a vocalist. And it established Skolnick as a major guitar hero for me, in spite of the fact that I'll never be able to play any of his licks even on my best day.
What has changed is that my taste in metal has gotten a bit more aggressive, and in that regard, The Ritual pales in comparison to The New Order or more recent efforts like Brotherhood of the Snake. Goddamn, I love Brotherhood of the Snake! So I'm not as blown away by The Ritual as I was back in the day. But there's enough good stuff on it that I should still give it the occasional spin.
The Verdict: I like my Testament faster, scarier, and more thrashy than The Ritual ever gets, but it's still a pretty solid record.
Best Songs: Electric Crown, Agony, Return to Serenity, Troubled Dreams
First, a couple of ground rules:
1. Studio albums only. No compilations, live albums or greatest hits packages. It's too easy to fall for a band when you're only hearing their best stuff or hearing them with an audience reacting to them. Therefore, don't expect to see Queen or Creedence Clearwater Revival here.
2. Sooner or later, I will get to albums I still regularly listen to, like Pinkerton, Rust in Peace or Angel Dust. In those cases, I'll do my best to listen with unbiased ears. But you know how it is with something you have an emotional attachment to. Objectivity will not be possible.
Ok. Let's roll.
The Ritual by Testament
Release year: 1992
Last Time I Listened To It: It's been at least a couple years. Long enough for me to forget a lot of the deeper album cuts.
So...
There was a time back in the early 90s after Metallica dropped The Black Album and sold like a billion copies. In Black's wake, all the thrash bands were dialing back the aggression and the gain on the amps in a quest for more massive commercial success. Even Slayer slowed things down a bit and went in more of a hardcore punk direction.
That's where The Ritual fits. Released as grunge was taking over the music world and metal was falling out of favor with tastemakers, The Ritual is a hard step towards a more radio- and MTV-friendly sound. The difference is notable from early on. After a brief instrumental introduction, the record kicks into Electric Crown. It's a driving tune with some good riffing, but when vocalist Chuck Billy comes in on the first verse, he's singing in a much lower register, almost crooning the lyrics. His trademark metal bellow enters on the chorus, but it's a little disconcerting to be able to sing along with a Testament song without thrash your vocal cords.
But the thing that feels the most off here is the pacing of the album. Most of the songs have distinct midtempo pacing and sometimes The Ritual really plods. That's true for the second full song on the album, So Many Lies. Its triple-chug guitars riffs and doomy feel are pretty cool, but the song takes too long to get going and feels sluggish and tired. It's a six-plus-minute song and I feel like I'm done with it after about 2 1/2 minutes.
This Mid-Tempo Slog Syndrome infects other songs on the record. As the Seasons Grey is another 6-minute-plus epic that fails to raise your pulse. Same with Let Go of My World and Deadline. Too much time spent mucking about with overlong intros which only serves to keep you from getting to the good parts of the songs for too long. And unfortunately, "the good parts" are listenable, yet rarely excellent.
That's not to say the record's a total loss. Electric Crown kicks pretty hard. As does Agony and the album-closing Troubled Dreams. The title track is an interesting take on the metal ballad, offering some serious creep factor the clean arpeggios that hang over the verse sections. As good as this tune is, it gets blown out of the water by the truly epic Return to Serenity. Featuring one of the greatest solos ever from axe master Alex Skolnick, Serenity fuses some cool heavy riffs with haunting melodic passages. When you're talking about thrash ballads (a term I feel a little queasy typing out), this tune is one of the best.
Add to this that The Ritual doesn't feel nearly as removed from Testament's classic sound as some Metallica (cough... Load... cough...) and Megadeth (what the fuck was Risk, Dave?) efforts do. While Megadeth turned sharply into arena rock and Metallica went full-on super-grunge, The Ritual feels more like a classic metal record than a thrash record. But it's still a metal record.
And Testament wouldn't stay away from the heavy shit as long as these other guys would. The Ritual is the sound of a band having issues. Soon after this record, drummer Louie Clemente left the band and Skolnick exited to play with his jazz trio and Trans-Siberian Orchestra (among others), though he'd return to the band in 2005. After Skolnick's exit, the band cranked up the gain and went in an almost death metal direction on albums like Low and Demonic. Add to that a string of excellent latter-day records beginning with The Formation of Damnation in 2008.
For me, The Ritual was really the record that cemented my love for Testament. I already owned, and dug, previous releases like The New Order and Practice What You Preach, but my love for Testament lagged behind the likes of Anthrax, Megadeth and even Overkill. The Ritual changed all that. It was the soundtrack to many excursions to rent videos or annoy cowboys on Main Street. It convinced me to dig deeper into the band's earlier work. It illustrated Eric Peterson's skill as a riff writer and Billy's prowess as a vocalist. And it established Skolnick as a major guitar hero for me, in spite of the fact that I'll never be able to play any of his licks even on my best day.
What has changed is that my taste in metal has gotten a bit more aggressive, and in that regard, The Ritual pales in comparison to The New Order or more recent efforts like Brotherhood of the Snake. Goddamn, I love Brotherhood of the Snake! So I'm not as blown away by The Ritual as I was back in the day. But there's enough good stuff on it that I should still give it the occasional spin.
The Verdict: I like my Testament faster, scarier, and more thrashy than The Ritual ever gets, but it's still a pretty solid record.
Best Songs: Electric Crown, Agony, Return to Serenity, Troubled Dreams
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