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Japanese pressing of Testament's Brotherhood Of The Snake

Posted by Luminator (A) on December 17, 2016 at 19:27:44

At the end of 1987, Testament played some now-legendary shows here in the Bay Area. Those shows really placed the band at the front of the burgeoning thrash metal scene, established the "Bay Area crunch."

When we returned to school for the Winter '88 quarter, two of my high school friends could not wait, to tell me about this new band they saw at The Stone. Hmmm, maybe that is why, each time we went up to Broadway Street, the intro to "Apocalyptic City" seemed to linger over that hill, just shy of Coit Tower.

That subset of audiophiles who listen to rock music know that Testament now have a new album out, called Brotherhood Of The Snake, on Nuclear Blast records. The title track has appeared fairly regularly on contemporary rock radio. Anyway, since most of the band was scattered, founding member Eric Peterson wrote the songs, which show his penchant for relying on riffs. Though the parts were recorded at various times and locations, the final production pulls 'em all together, and sounds cohesive.

The first 2 minutes of "The Pale King" (see below) hearken back to 1990, sounds like something from Forbidden or Vio-lence. Other songs are reminiscent of Exodus' Tempo Of The Damned, while the rest has Testament sounding like a modern version of Reign In Blood-era Slayer. My favorite may be "Neptune's Spear," parts of which get your feet moving, a la late-80s vintage Exodus.

A major reason why we music fans do not buy CDs is that manufacturers, for some dumb reason, add compression. The compression just ruins the music.

Thank you, Steve [you know your moniker], for sending me a Japanese pressing of Brotherhood Of The Snake [pictured above, listed as Ward Records GQCS-90231]. This copy does NOT have any added compression. Thus, the music retains its speed, and does not have its top cut off. Now you can marvel at Gene Hoglan's machine-like drumming, and bassist Steve DiGiorgio playing like it's 1990 all over again. And yes, you clearly hear the modern-day guitars, which do not have the bite, distortion, and character of those from the late-80s. No, the Japanese pressing does not magically turn this monophonic recording into something with space between images, and soundstage width, depth, and height.

Is Brotherhood Of The Snake going to win over any of the audiophiles who do not like rock music? Highly unlikely. But the Japanese pressing shows us that, if record companies would put out good-sounding material, (a) it'd do justice to the music, and (b) we'd have a stronger reason to buy it.

My audiophile friends have sent me a small smattering of not-from-America CDs of popular music. Some of which is very interesting, not just from the musical perspective, but in terms of sonics. It's very educational, and the rest of us audiophiles need to take a listen. Stay tuned.

-Lummy The Loch Monster

• The Pale King   (Open in New Window)

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