Review by Chris Pratl on April 13, 2017.

Another band from my seemingly ancient childhood has emerged to drop yet another new album in my lap. Testament, a band that has been criminally undervalued for the likes of Megadeth, Anthrax and countless others I'm too kind to mention, issues Dark Roots of Earth with a thrash metal vengeance that will most likely lay waste to pretty much anything else the medium has to offer.

To say that Testament hasn't had a misstep or two in nearly 30-years of heavy music isn't exactly truthful, but to absolutely claim that the band is still at the top of the game with this release is vastly understated. All of the incidental perfections associated with the artifact known as thrash metal are present and accounted for, especially with the powerful opener, “Rise Up”. Cliches aside, it's the perfect opener for an album by a band that is bent on showing up the youngin's vying for position in this crazy battlefield called heavy metal.

Another element immediately noticeable is the thick production that was literally screaming for a band like Testament to come and puff up the edges while retaining a sickening layer of sound that just covers you like a drenched blanket, immobilizing and enchanting you. Of this supposed “Big Four” Testament is sometimes seen as Oliver from the last season of the Brady Bunch: the cute little add-on at the end to round out the picture, but I'll tell you, in my opinion, Testament is the band out of all four that has the most to say in the tightest fashion in the modern day. This band has never forgotten its roots, never stultified its role in the movement, and has never given in to label pressure like some genre-jumping bands hoping for the momentary mall-metal crowd. When something as tempestuous as “True American Hate” starts burrowing into your brain you know what you're experiencing is the real deal, raw and reckless, not to mention integral and precise.

The music on this latest effort is a fascinating journey into the annals of thrash metal history, complete with disturbingly potent riffs and overpowering vocals the likes of which are often imitated and never accurately reproduced to any discernible degree. Chuck Billy is the whole package when it comes to his singing style; the heated and often elevated effort he issues with each and every song showcases that familiar bellowing we've all come to know and headbang to over all of these years. “A Day in the Death” is probably my favorite track in that it has elements of The New Order and Low that seem to mesh (to an agreeable front) that wondrous past with the modern era we so desperately hope to hang on to for fear of it going the way of the screamo era. I think it's safe to say that Testament won't be doing that anytime soon.

Alex Skolnick and Eric Peterson provide the dual attack that is oh-so-familiar and provides us fans with the very template with which we build shrines and imaginary marble homages to these heroes from our past. The guitar tones are easily recognizable as Testament and the fluidity of “Throne of Thorns” is one of the best examples of a chugging, thrashing riff if ever there was one. Even in today's over-populated medium an aging rocker or two can muster up the strength to batter those fretboards so sweetly that its fan base salivates with every chord in ways Pavlov never thought viable.

For any naysayers out there claiming the oldsters are mucking up the works, Dark Roots of Earth defies the expectant rudiments and trappings of a genre lost to unfiltered degeneration and slaps the faces of the hesitant elite that will never understand the true power of this band. For all the years under its belt, Testament provides a swift kick to the face with the steel-toed boot of thrash metal, carrying inside it a long lineage of honor and respect.

We expect and accept nothing less.

Rating: 9.5 out of 10

(Originally written for www.metalpsalter.com)

Review by Chris Pratl on April 13, 2017.

Another band from my seemingly ancient childhood has emerged to drop yet another new album in my lap. Testament, a band that has been criminally undervalued for the likes of Megadeth, Anthrax and countless others I'm too kind to mention, issues Dark Roots of Earth with a thrash metal vengeance that will most likely lay waste to pretty much anything else the medium has to offer.

To say that Testament hasn't had a misstep or two in nearly 30-years of heavy music isn't exactly truthful, but to absolutely claim that the band is still at the top of the game with this release is vastly understated. All of the incidental perfections associated with the artifact known as thrash metal are present and accounted for, especially with the powerful opener, “Rise Up”. Cliches aside, it's the perfect opener for an album by a band that is bent on showing up the youngin's vying for position in this crazy battlefield called heavy metal.

Another element immediately noticeable is the thick production that was literally screaming for a band like Testament to come and puff up the edges while retaining a sickening layer of sound that just covers you like a drenched blanket, immobilizing and enchanting you. Of this supposed “Big Four” Testament is sometimes seen as Oliver from the last season of the Brady Bunch: the cute little add-on at the end to round out the picture, but I'll tell you, in my opinion, Testament is the band out of all four that has the most to say in the tightest fashion in the modern day. This band has never forgotten its roots, never stultified its role in the movement, and has never given in to label pressure like some genre-jumping bands hoping for the momentary mall-metal crowd. When something as tempestuous as “True American Hate” starts burrowing into your brain you know what you're experiencing is the real deal, raw and reckless, not to mention integral and precise.

The music on this latest effort is a fascinating journey into the annals of thrash metal history, complete with disturbingly potent riffs and overpowering vocals the likes of which are often imitated and never accurately reproduced to any discernible degree. Chuck Billy is the whole package when it comes to his singing style; the heated and often elevated effort he issues with each and every song showcases that familiar bellowing we've all come to know and headbang to over all of these years. “A Day in the Death” is probably my favorite track in that it has elements of The New Order and Low that seem to mesh (to an agreeable front) that wondrous past with the modern era we so desperately hope to hang on to for fear of it going the way of the screamo era. I think it's safe to say that Testament won't be doing that anytime soon.

Alex Skolnick and Eric Peterson provide the dual attack that is oh-so-familiar and provides us fans with the very template with which we build shrines and imaginary marble homages to these heroes from our past. The guitar tones are easily recognizable as Testament and the fluidity of “Throne of Thorns” is one of the best examples of a chugging, thrashing riff if ever there was one. Even in today's over-populated medium an aging rocker or two can muster up the strength to batter those fretboards so sweetly that its fan base salivates with every chord in ways Pavlov never thought viable.

For any naysayers out there claiming the oldsters are mucking up the works, Dark Roots of Earth defies the expectant rudiments and trappings of a genre lost to unfiltered degeneration and slaps the faces of the hesitant elite that will never understand the true power of this band. For all the years under its belt, Testament provides a swift kick to the face with the steel-toed boot of thrash metal, carrying inside it a long lineage of honor and respect.

We expect and accept nothing less.

Rating: 9.5 out of 10

(Originally written for www.metalpsalter.com)

Review by Chris Pratl on April 13, 2017.

Another band from my seemingly ancient childhood has emerged to drop yet another new album in my lap. Testament, a band that has been criminally undervalued for the likes of Megadeth, Anthrax and countless others I'm too kind to mention, issues Dark Roots of Earth with a thrash metal vengeance that will most likely lay waste to pretty much anything else the medium has to offer.

To say that Testament hasn't had a misstep or two in nearly 30-years of heavy music isn't exactly truthful, but to absolutely claim that the band is still at the top of the game with this release is vastly understated. All of the incidental perfections associated with the artifact known as thrash metal are present and accounted for, especially with the powerful opener, “Rise Up”. Cliches aside, it's the perfect opener for an album by a band that is bent on showing up the youngin's vying for position in this crazy battlefield called heavy metal.

Another element immediately noticeable is the thick production that was literally screaming for a band like Testament to come and puff up the edges while retaining a sickening layer of sound that just covers you like a drenched blanket, immobilizing and enchanting you. Of this supposed “Big Four” Testament is sometimes seen as Oliver from the last season of the Brady Bunch: the cute little add-on at the end to round out the picture, but I'll tell you, in my opinion, Testament is the band out of all four that has the most to say in the tightest fashion in the modern day. This band has never forgotten its roots, never stultified its role in the movement, and has never given in to label pressure like some genre-jumping bands hoping for the momentary mall-metal crowd. When something as tempestuous as “True American Hate” starts burrowing into your brain you know what you're experiencing is the real deal, raw and reckless, not to mention integral and precise.

The music on this latest effort is a fascinating journey into the annals of thrash metal history, complete with disturbingly potent riffs and overpowering vocals the likes of which are often imitated and never accurately reproduced to any discernible degree. Chuck Billy is the whole package when it comes to his singing style; the heated and often elevated effort he issues with each and every song showcases that familiar bellowing we've all come to know and headbang to over all of these years. “A Day in the Death” is probably my favorite track in that it has elements of The New Order and Low that seem to mesh (to an agreeable front) that wondrous past with the modern era we so desperately hope to hang on to for fear of it going the way of the screamo era. I think it's safe to say that Testament won't be doing that anytime soon.

Alex Skolnick and Eric Peterson provide the dual attack that is oh-so-familiar and provides us fans with the very template with which we build shrines and imaginary marble homages to these heroes from our past. The guitar tones are easily recognizable as Testament and the fluidity of “Throne of Thorns” is one of the best examples of a chugging, thrashing riff if ever there was one. Even in today's over-populated medium an aging rocker or two can muster up the strength to batter those fretboards so sweetly that its fan base salivates with every chord in ways Pavlov never thought viable.

For any naysayers out there claiming the oldsters are mucking up the works, Dark Roots of Earth defies the expectant rudiments and trappings of a genre lost to unfiltered degeneration and slaps the faces of the hesitant elite that will never understand the true power of this band. For all the years under its belt, Testament provides a swift kick to the face with the steel-toed boot of thrash metal, carrying inside it a long lineage of honor and respect.

We expect and accept nothing less.

Rating: 9.5 out of 10

(Originally written for www.metalpsalter.com)

Review by Fernando on July 30, 2021.

While when it comes to reviewing there’s always a catharsis to reviewing bad albums, be it to make fun or just to put a final word to a bad listening experience. The worst type of negative reviews for me are the ones for bands that had great potential or went in befuddling directions. And that’s certainly the case with Canadian solo act The Ember, The Ash’s sophomore record Fixation, released through Prosthetic Records.

The Ember, The Ash is the one-man band by William Melsness aka 鬼 (Chinese for ghost), who is most well-known for his main shoegaze project Unreqvited. I first became aware of this project by coming across his 2019 debut album Consciousness Torn From The Void, wherein he displayed a surprisingly well crafted if standard album of atmospheric black metal with a depressingly raw edge and beautifully implemented keyboards. While it didn’t reinvent the wheel or anything it got me interested enough to be on the lookout for the next record and also check out his main project Unreqvited (on a sidenote it is also decent and worth checking out for fans of the more shoegaze and alt rock centric work of bands like Alcest and Deafheaven), and in 2021 he finally came back with Fixation and my overall takeaway from this new record is disappointment.

The big sticking point of this record is how it’s a completely drastic musical shift from atmospheric and depressing black metal into, of all things, deathcore, and more befuddling, "SYMPHONIC" deathcore. And beyond all the mockery and flack this particular subgenre has gotten, the truth is that it really does deserve some of the guff, and this album in particular is guilty of the many criticisms’ deathcore gets. The blaring and overwrought production, the overreliance of chugging guitars and simplistic bass, no sense of melody, and a chaotic musical composition that feels aimless and uneven, which in turns makes this album feel longer than it actually is. Furthermore, the symphonic elements on Fixation, make this album (that’s meant to have a serious tone with themes of addiction and existential dread) sound way too melodramatic and cheesy, which defeats the whole purpose of the music’s attempted extremity, and of course, it has the other fatal flaw of deathcore which is having a loud and "intense" mixing to make the music sound extreme and forceful but ends up just being loud and caustic to an obnoxious level and no real grit or rawness.

The main criticism I had with Consciousness Torn From The Void was that it wasn’t unique and wore its influences on its sleeve, but on Fixation, that criticism is worse by a massive margin because its just a deathcore album, even Melsness vocals sound so average, the dude displayed some surprisingly compelling shrieks in both this project and Unreqvited (where his clean singing is also very good) but on this record it’s just run of the mill, hum drum deathcore shouting and the whole experience amounts to a frustratingly boring album with no sense of real identity. Finally, the inclusion of the previous album’s title track re-recorded in this new style also feels so forced and makes it harder to not compare this record with its predecessor.

It really pains me to make a scathing review like this for The Ember, The Ash because that first album really hooked me in, and Melsness other project also showed me the dude is legitimately talented. Even with how much I dislike this record, it’s clear that this was an intentional creative direction Melsness wanted to take, but as much as I can respect his talent and passion, the sad truth is that this album is simply not for me, and many other people who were into his first record as much as I was and were hoping for a follow up in that style will probably feel the same way about Fixation.

Rating: 1.5 out of 10