Testament - Souls of Black

Troublezone wrote:

Souls of Black is still one of my favorite Testament albums. It may have been slightly rushed in production, but it is a great follow up to Practice What You Preach.

Slightly rushed sounds about right. But the songs are still great. 

Seven Days of May seems like a topical song again what with Hong Kong and all.

Great song.

Yep. It's a great release as far as I'm concerned.

I think producer Michael Wagner did a good job considering the time he had to work with. My only complaint is that there is a bit too much reverb on Eric’s rhythm guitar, but it works beautifully for Alex’s leads! The solos are dialed in perfect (nice and clear with great harmonics).

Lari wrote:

Great song.

I almost came to shit on the album, but yeah that's a great song!

I've given Testament about three chances but I haven't been able to get into the band at all.
Souls of Black was the first album I bought from them and I was really disappointed. I recall it had only one good moment or a song (could've been The Legacy). Later I've bought two more albums with hopes to start to dig the band but they all have left me cold. It's the same with Exodus for some reason. Both are classic thrash bands I haven't been able to get myself to like even though thrash is my favorite genre.

This song is really really good though! Maybe I should spin it again. It's been several years I tried it the last time.

I like this album a lot , just don´t feel it´s that much "thrash" , Testament was getting tamer with each album since "Practice" and this one is good , but lacks the proper "thrash" side of some early records , but I like it .

I revisiting it , certainly a classic , but sounds less "thrashy" then say , New Order , at the same time more varied and melodic . Testament fans usually prefer stuff from the first 2 on the set list but this album is a classic . Only BAD (IMO) TesTamenT album was "Demonic" .

Some people used to call this type of Metal "Whiffle Thrash" back then . It sounds great , but lacks the speed and intensity of more traditional Thrash Metal , but it´s O.K. . Both "Practice" and "Souls of Black" where seemingly higly influenced by Metallica´s AJFA .

I think the Practice and Souls albums compliment each other. Practice was heavier, but Souls was darker.

Lari wrote:

Great song.

Indeed.

Fat Freddy wrote:

I haven't listened to Souls of Black in a while, but I seem to remember it started off with a couple of really strong cuts and then kinda sputtered to a halt around the halfway mark. I suppose if we were still in the cassette era I would've said "side one was really good, but side 2 was weak."

"Malpractice", which is on the second half of the album, is probably my favorite song from the album. Awesome song, and easily one of the top three most underrated Testament songs of all time.

Both Souls of Black and The Ritual are fantastic and highly underrated TesTamenT records ...