Testament Album: “Formation of Damnation”

For once it's refreshing to see a band's promise about a forthcoming release actually live up to how they hype that it will sound like.

Testament's 1st album of all new material in 9 years was billed by the band of having the songwriting style of their classic 80's material while featuring the much more aggressive playing style/production of 1999's The Gathering (which is still a most amazing album.) Well, that's what we got with The Formation of Damnation.

To be honest, this isn't as great of an album as The Gathering was, and this is coming from a long time fan who has been listening to the band since 1987. I still greatly appreciate their classic material but I felt that with The Gathering the band really reached their apex (depsite the fact that Chuck Billy and Eric Peterson were the only 2 original members left in the group by that point). But The Formation of Damnation is still a very good release that will please long time fans (of Bay Area thrash in particular) while not being quite as earth shattering as it needed to be to convert current audiences into new fans.

Song wise the album isn't as thrashy or as brutal as the Gathering with maybe the exception of the crushing title track. Writing wise a lot of this sounds like The New Order and Practice What you Preach styles with a more brutal guitar/drum attack. Chuck Billy still occasionally dips into his 90's death metal growl at times, but he doesn't do it nearly as much as he did during that period. He sings here much more in his older style and while his range isn't what it used to be he still turns in a tremendous performance. Returning original lead guitarist Alex Skolnick does his usual brilliant guitar work and drummer Paul Bostaph (who played on their Return to Apocalyptic City E.P.) does his always solid and fantastic drum work. Original bass player Greg Christian returns and I was a bit disappointed by how root oriented his playing was on this album, but it still does fit, just don't expect some of his memorable bass lines from yesteryear (with the exception being the final track Leave Me Forever which features a fantastic bass line throughout and was co-written by Greg Christian ironically enough). Eric Peterson still remains one of the most criminally underrated rhythm guitarists (who also can rip great leads) in all of metal and his riff work here is great as always.

Seeing as this is basically a new fresh start for this band, it should be interesting to see how they are able to build on this release as while not being their best work is still much better than a lot of people are probably expecting out of it.

When The Formation Of Damnation first came out in '08, I was very excited. It showed the Testament that fans of The Legacy, The New Order, and Practice What You Preach really wanted to hear. Not saying that fans didn't want to hear another Gathering sounding album or that it was a bad album. I loved The Gathering. But Alex Skolnick was back in the band, and his presence was heard on Formation. It was like old and new. Now we have the tour edition, and I must say....don't waste your time if you already own the album. They basically took the standard cd (original artwork and all), put a cardboard sleeve over it, and put a bonus cd inside the sleeve. Now, I'll admit that Metal Blade did the exact same thing with Unearth's The March, and I bought into that. But at least it had a bonus dvd with a lot more cool stuff than what you'd get here. What you get with this edition of Formation is a bonus cd with three live tracks, and as a cd enhancement (for those that don't know, there's a logo that says enhanced cd on some cd's you buy. That means you put the cd in your computer for additional content like video content and such.), the music video for "More Than Meets The Eye," and the video footage of the same three songs you hear on the same disc. I was at least expecting a bonus dvd of some sort, like the one that came with the import version of the album that has the making of it. That would have been better, or if it was a full live concert dvd or cd, that would have been great too. Anyway, I'm a big fan of the album, not this edition though. If you don't already have the cd, go ahead and get it. If you do, don't bother upgrading to this version.

I've been listening to metal music since 1980 and followed all the trends and twists on the form that have surfaced. When it comes to trash I've listened to it and enjoyed for the last 25 years. There are few releases that I regard as among the best; Reign In Blood and Seasons In The Abyss by Slayer, Bonded By Blood by Exodus, Master Of Puppets and Ride The Lightning Metallica, Peace Sells and Rust In Peace by Megadeth among others.

I've always enjoyed Testament up to a certain degree but never felt they released an album worthy of a inclusion on a top 10 Trash Album list.

But with The Formation Of Damnation they have created a masterpiece of Trash Metal. Sticking to their roots but infusing it with elements of Death and Black Metal. It's catchy as hell, brutal and allt the instruments played with musical mastery.

This is the surely the best Metal release of 2008 and they have set the standard for modern metal that will be very hard to beat.

It will be very interesting to see what the "masters" Metallica will come up with in Death Magnetic. I surely hope Lars, Kirk, James and Robert are listening to this Testament relaese and sweating over how the hell they are going to top it.

Go out and get it!

Since their formation Testament has always delivered and brutal assault of trash to the fans and have yet to compromize their sound which gains great respect along the lines of Slayer. Awesome bands amazing new album!

well, I am probably going to catch hell for saying this, but I was somewhat underwhelmed by this release. but I have to call it as I see it- I am not one of those fans who will automatically give 5 stars "just because." while the band is in top form, and the production is good, in my opinion, there aren't any memorable songs here. it's full-on heavy, but that's it. there's no "feel" to it. it's just heavy for the sake of being heavy. there's a lot of heavy stuff that has "feel" to it (go back and listen to older testament and you will understand what I mean), but in this case, i'm just not getting the vibe. with skolnick and petersen reuniting, I was hoping for the great riffs you'd expect whenever those two team up. but the riffs that just stick in your head (think "into the pit" or "burnt offerings") weren't there. ditto the leads. skolnick shreds, but again, there is just nothing memorable. there is some great, albeit generic, drumming from bostaph, as you'd expect (louie who?). just your standard rapid-fire thrash drumming. I do believe their best stuff is definitely behind them. it's great that testament is back and maintaining a presence on the scene, but their older stuff is definitely what carries them. if you are a hardcore fan, you will buy this regardless, but if you are new to testament, I would recommend their earlier stuff. this is one of those discs that you listen to and when it's over, you say to yourself, "so this is it?" not horrible, but not great by any stretch of the imagination. this is an old-school bay-area thrash band just going through the motions.