TESTAMENT "Dark Roots of Earth"

Through the years millions of bands have passed, some have succeeded some have failed. Testament have done a bit of both, most of their records has been at least decent and some has been absoulutely brilliant. I have always liked some songs on all of their records, but sometimes they have lacked songs with real punch all the way. "Dark Roots of Earth" is absolutely one great record. Full of Alex Skolnick´s and Eric Peterson´s nice sounding solos and Chuck Billy´s voice is in great shape. It feels great to see that man alive and well again! Fuck cancer!  The songs themselves involve even grind in "True American Hate" and that´s pretty rare in Testament´s case. Awesome song about meaningless hatred. I could say I dislike too much melodies in metal but Testament have always been good at incorporating melodies while it still sounds metal as fuck. Never too much of it and never losing that important punch in the music.  This disc  is very varied and multilayered with a lot of amazing musicianship. Yes, you can hear this is a bunch of experienced musicians delivering "thinking man´s thrash metal" yet never losing the edge to the music. Never too technical nor too pretentious. I could say a lot about this record, and take it song by song, but this review would be too long to read I think.  Among my favorites you can find almost every one of the songs in its own different way. Every song fulfills its purpose in a way hard to describe. It´s like a long trip where you have to get from point A to point B to get the whole picture. This record is near an epic masterpiece, it´s very diverse, from real thrash monsters to slower melodic songs with amazing solos, and I mean amazing guitar work. Alex` and Eric`s solos on this record is like "I want more" the whole time. Stunningly performed, lovely to hear. When it comes to the drums I haven´t found out whom of Gene Hoglan or Chris Adler plays which song but I guess there are a lot of drum fantaics who want to hear about the drumming. Well, I hear one thing anyway. The drumming is like the music itself not overly technical but with a lot of FEELING and of course tight as my buns of steel (well) Very organic sounding drums I should say. No "plastic feeling" at all. Of course the whole production is very thick and it fits the music perfectly. Thanx guys, you have made me jelous again. Well done. Have I some negative aspects of this record? Well, in a perfect world I would ask for 10 point riffs all over the record from beginning to end. This time, maybe 10 percent of the riffs is like 8 points. And maybe some of the songs could be a bit shorter. But this is as we say in Sweden "luxury problems" as in "minor problems"

8,5/10