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Class 6(66)
Testament: Low
06/03/12 || BamaHammer
Introduction
I love nostalgic feelings I get from some of the music from my youth. I honestly can’t tell you exactly why, but I consider 1994 probably my favorite year of my entire childhood. It was the year I turned 13, and my malleable young mind was unknowingly being shaped drastically by the musical and cultural influences surrounding me at the time. For my birthday that year, I remember getting a stereo system with a CD player, which was a pretty big deal at the time. I used to stay up late at night listening to the few albums I had through headphones in fear of waking up my parents. I was really into Metallica, Mötley Crüe, and Guns N Roses but began to crave even more of a heavy edge in the music.
I remember reading “Metal Maniacs” magazine every time I went to the local supermarket. I’d see countless bands and albums that I just had to hear on seemingly every page, but I had no idea how to procure that music. When you’re that young, you try to get your grimy little mitts on the albums you want any way you can. I distinctly remember four albums from 1994 that I played perpetually that year. I started with “Youthanasia” by Megadeth, which I bought from a music store for essentially all my money. I remember convincing my mom that Obituary’s “World Demise” was about protecting the environment so she would buy it for me. I discovered the best Slayer album (to me anyway), “Divine Intervention,” and acquired what had to be at least a 139th-generation copy of it on cassette. And “Low” by Testament, which was another cassette copy of a friend’s cassette copy, became another piece of thrash history that holds a special place in my heart.
Many fans of thrash metal remember “Low” as “the one where Chuck Billy started growling” or “that Testament album when they booted Skolnick”. For me, I remember “Low” as my first encounter with the immortal Testament, a band that would eventually become one of my favorite bands whether I like it or not. It’s also marks the moment when Testament became the embodiment of the perfect infusion of death metal and thrash metal. “Low” is album that I’ve always loved and always will.
Songwriting
8,5. The thing about “Low” that I think I like so much is that it just sounds so fresh. When I first heard it, it was all I knew about Testament. I couldn’t think about it in terms of Testament’s thrash classics like “The legacy” or “Practice what you penis.” In retrospect however, and having heard those albums millions of times, it’s a refreshing piece of something that’s just different. Yes, Alex Skolnick isn’t here, but he’s replaced by James Murphy. Eric Peterson gets to fully exhibit his songwriting skill, which I can say is an amazing blend of groove and thrash that probably unknowingly kick-started the whole semi-annoying death-influenced groove/thrash phenomenon that has come about over the past decade or so. Testament just nailed the concept of groovy thrash on this record. On top of everything else, they even gave us a thrash ballad, the Native American-inspired “Trail of tears,” and it ain’t even all that bad.
Production
8. The production is thick, meaty, and full of bottom end goodness (insert joke here). The deep, groovy riffing of Peterson and Murphy wouldn’t have worked any other way. Dump Chuck Billy’s varied shout-and-growl approach atop that wall of sound, and you get one seriously huge sounding album.
Guitars
8,5. This was actually a fascinating scenario within the band at the time of this album and a classic example of infamous “musical differences” that cause bands to change personnel. Members of the band had agreed that Testament’s technical guitar bulwark Alex Skolnick had become too soft and less brutal over the years, and Skolnick decided it would be best to leave the band and their animosity behind in search of more melodic and generally accepted musical interests. The replacement found to be the veritable Eric Peterson’s sidekick was none other than James Murphy of Death and Obituary fame. Obviously, this change enhanced the band’s brutal side, but combined with the renown thrashy groove of Peterson, “Low” is an amalgam of some of the coolest and grooviest riffs Testament has ever recorded. The sound of the guitars is deep and heavy as lead, perfect for all the brutal-yet-groovy tracks on the album.
Vocals
9. Chuck Billy. The name itself tells you everything you think you need to know, but “Low” marks a noticeable departure in his sound. Many fans think of this as the album where he went all “death metal growl” on us, and for the most part they’re exactly right. Billy tries to make a unique style of thrash vocals and step into his own as a singer. The classic “Bay-Area thrash sound” reminiscent of James Hetfield that Billy had used up to this point was replaced by a combination of a deeper, meaner version of himself and those almost death-metal-esque growls, and the whole package sounds fantastic. The addition of low growls is a perfect compliment to Testament’s newly discovered brutal side and brings even more guts and bottom end to an already heavy overall sound. They could not have picked a better word for the title of this album.
Bass
4,5. For an album with such a huge, deep bottom-heavy sound, the bass sure is anonymous. It peers through the mix every now and then, but you can hardly notice without making a conscious effort to listen for it. Greg Christian did make a couple of good contributions to the songwriting on this album though.
Drums
7. Unbeknownst at the time I first heard this album, the original Testament drummer, Louie Clemente, had left the band in search of a more stable career. I mean seriously, what could be less tumultuous and volatile than the music industry? While Clemente went on to selling fine home furnishings, Exodus’s John Tempesta (who has also had stints with White Zombie, Helmet, and Prong as well as a return to Testament as a live musician) stepped in to handle the drumming on “Low.” Strangely enough, his name is not even listed with the rest of the band in the booklet, appearing instead in the special thanks section. His actual performance is technically fairly pedestrian by today’s standards, but he does provide an eclectic blend of styles ranging from groovy thrash to downright power ballad and everything in between. You never notice anything bad about his playing here, and given the circumstances involving the personnel chaos within the band, that’s really all you could ask for.
Lyrics
8. Lyrically, the album is really solid. It’s nothing philosophically deep or anything. It’s just classic Testament.
They range from typical Bay-Area Metallica mimicry:
Innocent people suffer the loss.
Lost hope with faith to the cross.
Sometimes you just don’t know
How low, how low you can go.
To almost power metal balladry:
Full moon’s rising from the sky
A warrior’s riding, ride with the wind
So far away the spirits will guide you
No more sorrow. Don’t look back.
Your freedom will follow flying so free.
Either way, the guys in the band could hash out some wordage. As any fan will tell you, with Testament, it was never so much about exactly what was being said as much as it was about the way Chuck says it.
Cover art
4,5. As a kid, I thought it was badass. As I grew up, I realized it’s really a letdown. It’s a strange mishmash of misshapen, blurred pieces that come together to form what looks like an angel made of fire overlaid on a dark square in the center for contrast. Beneath the square there seems to be white roots growing downward from the band logo and through the immensely spaced three-word album title with an abalone sky at the top. Ultimately, it’s pretty weak. I bet it still looked neat on a t-shirt circa 1994 though. Either way, this is the band that gave us the covers for “Teh new order.” They were capable of better. The front was also way better than the back. The names of the songs are listed in a huge, word-wrapped font on the top half of the back cover with an ugly squished band photo at the bottom.
Logo
7. It’s not the classic Testament logo from “The legacy” or “The new order” which is one of the best band logos ever. It’s also somewhat of a bummer. The logo is in the same format as the “Souls of black” cover with the letters spread wider apart. The bottom of each ‘T’ still looks like it could poke your eye out, and the ‘A’ in the middle is elongated with the classic “snake fangs” on the bottom. The color is what I would describe as green marble, and while probably not the best color choice, it works with the overall layout of the cover. It’s hard to screw up the Testament logo.
Booklet
5. The main thing I remember about my copy of the booklet is that it smells bad. It smells like almost two decades of nastiness. It’s not even a booklet, per se. It’s a five-panel fold-out. One side (the one with the cover) is printed in color. The other side is in black-and-white. It has lyrics, a couple of band shots, some artsy-fartsy background photography on each panel, endorsements, etc. You know, the usual. Oh, and a “thanks” section where they tell you who played drums. Thanks.
Overall and ending rant
Thrash metal has never been my favorite genre. I only truly like a handful of thrash bands anyway, and I don’t pretend to know a lot about them. Testament, however, is one of the thrash bands that I enjoy a lot (well, at least from “The legacy” to “Low”). This album is not only an album that I immensely enjoy. It’s a priceless piece of nostalgia that will forever remind me of growing up and one of the coolest and most pivotal year’s of my musical existence.
- Information
- Released: 1994
- Label: Atlantic
- Website: www.testamentlegions.com
- Band
- Chuck Billy: vocals
- Eric Peterson: guitar
- James Murphy: guitar
- Greg Christian: bass
- John Tempesta: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Low
- 02. Legions (In Hiding)
- 03. Hail Mary
- 04. Trail of Tears
- 05. Shades of War
- 06. P.C.
- 07. Dog Faced Gods
- 08. All I Could Bleed
- 09. Urotsukidōji
- 10. Chasing Fear
- 11. Ride
- 12. Last Call
