The Ritual (Album)
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| Testament studio album | ||||
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Publication |
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| Label (s) | Atlantic Records | |||
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Title (number) |
11 |
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running time |
54:30 |
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Studio (s) |
One on One Recording, Los Angeles , California |
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The Ritual (Engl .: the ritual ) is the fifth studio album of the American thrash metal band Testament . It was released on Atlantic Records in May 1992 . It was the last album with guitarist Alex Skolnick and the last with drummer Louie Clemente. The band made a significant change in style from Thrash to Heavy Metal on The Ritual . There was a music video for the piece Electric Crown .
History and style
Ever since the recording of Practice What You Preach , there had been increasing differences between Alex Skolnick and the rest of the band about the musical direction. Skolnick, who himself no longer listened to or wanted to play metal, but rather occupied himself with jazz or the music of Joe Satriani and Jeff Beck , increasingly pushed for a change away from Thrash and into softer realms. After the album Souls of Black , which was not a step forward in terms of sales, Skolnick went on tour with Stuart Hamm , while Eric Peterson and Chuck Billy devoted themselves to the songwriting for the new record. When Skolnick joined after the tour, he refused to play the written material in this form and prompted the band to make significant changes. The band faced the choice of either firing Skolnick or changing the tracks and decided on the latter. Already in the fall of 1992, after a successful US tour together with Corrosion of Conformity in the opening act for Iron Maiden , in which the band had between 7,000 and 12,000 spectators, the separation was indicated, which was carried out a little later at Skolnick's request. Skolnick then founded a solo project and played for Michael Manring and Savatage , for example .
Even before the recordings for The Ritual , the band had finally switched to Atlantic Records after the company's distribution contract with the small Thrash label Megaforce Records , which Testament had previously signed, had expired. Atlantic had an option to take five bands from Megaforce with them, including Testament. The band expressed dissatisfaction with this fact and the promotion of the album. For The Ritual , the British Tony Platt was selected as producer and sound engineer Nigel Green , the latter had already worked for Def Leppard , Mike Oldfield and Bryan Adams . The band did this to get away from a Metallica- like sound to which they had previously been frequently compared. The aim was to sound more "like the old Sabbath". Testament were also satisfied with the production and certified Platt “good work” despite minor disputes. Nevertheless, the result was compared again with the band just in the episode of Metallica's Black Album . Chuck Billy said about the change in style at the time:
"What we do isn't exactly Thrash, but our Thrash roots are still there in the music."
Chuck Billy later said that Skolnick's intervention broke the momentum originally created. The record company also contributed to this with their search for “the next single”, “the next video”. Eric Peterson called The Ritual a "good record" but also called it a "big compromise":
"The whole record was just a big compromise."
Texts
Chuck Billy worked for the first time with an external songwriter on the lyrics. Del James , a friend of Billy's, had worked for Guns N 'Roses . According to Billy, they made “stories” out of the previous “collections of words”. The texts are kept "in a critical tone" without passing judgments. The title track is about getting older, about things you do every day. Agony is about prisoners of war, Let Go of My World is about people who believe everything that is in the newspaper.
reception
Although Götz Kühnemund from Rock Hard pointed out that The Ritual would probably disappoint the “fans of the first hour” and also criticized Chuck Billy's “a little too weak” vocals in places, he still gave the album eight out of ten points. "Clearly structured songs with catchy melodies" would be lifted out of the middle, especially by Skolnick's guitar work. Kühnemund's colleague Michael Rensen describes the “creative differences” in the band as fruitful and calls the record “a wonderfully diverse album that sounds very homogeneous despite all the differences of opinion”.
Also on metal-observer.com is The Ritual "a really good album," described as that was just the "mistake" not to sound so "how will actually sound." metal-crypt.com calls the record an "undervalued diamond", four out of five points were awarded. At allmusic , The Ritual was described as the “ microcosm ” of the Thrash scene of that time. The most uncharacteristic piece, the ballad Return to Serenity , is "ironically" the best on the record. Here the rating is 4.5 out of five stars.
Track list
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Chart positions Explanation of the data |
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- Signs of Chaos - 0:30 (Intro, Music: Skolnick)
- Electric Crown - 5:31 (Music: Skolnick, Peterson. Text: Billy, Skolnick)
- So Many Lies - 6:04 (Music: Skolnick, Peterson. Text: Billy, Peterson, James)
- Let Go of My World - 3:45 (Music: Peterson. Text: Billy, James)
- The Ritual - 7:34 (Music: Peterson, Skolnick. Text: Billy, Peterson, Skolnick, James)
- Deadline - 4:47 (Music: Skolnick. Text: Skolnick, Billy)
- As the Seasons Gray - 6:16 (Music: Peterson, Skolnick. Text: Billy, James)
- Agony - 4:07 (Music: Peterson. Text: Billy, James)
- The Sermon - 4:48 (Music: Peterson. Text: Billy, James)
- Return to Serenity - 6:25 (Music: Peterson. Text: Billy, Peterson, James)
- Troubled Dreams - 5:14 (Music: Peterson, Skolnick. Text: Billy, Peterson, James)
Web links
- The Ritual at Allmusic (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Review The Ritual
- ↑ a b Frank Trojan: The Zero Hour , in: Rock Hard, No. 73, June 1993, p. 94.
- ↑ a b http://www.blabbermouth.net: TESTAMENT Guitarist Says 'The Ritual' Album Was 'Just A Big Compromise', September 20, 2008 ( Memento from September 24, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ a b Uwe "Buffo" Schnädelbach: Shortly before the split? , in: Rock Hard, No. 65, October 1992, p. 100.
- ↑ a b c Matthias Penzel : Second-hand Metallica? , in: Rock Hard, No. 61, May 1992, p. 38.
- ↑ a b http://www.rockhard.de: Review The Ritual by Götz Kühnemund ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ http://www.amazon.de: Review The Ritual by Michael Rensen
- ↑ http://www.metalcrypt.com: Review The Ritual
- ↑ allmusic.com: Review The Ritual by Eduardo Rivadavia
- ↑ musicline.de: Testament in the German album charts ( Memento from August 5, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed on March 23, 2009)
- ↑ billboard.com: Chart Listing For The Week Of Jul 25 1992 ( Memento April 15, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed March 23, 2009)
