Description

Double album on black vinyls with gatefold cover and 3 very familiar yet very unique cover songs as bonus.

Whether evoking images of a barren post-apocalyptic landscape or extolling the virtues of the natures ultimate might, thunderous prophecy shrouded in monolithic, overwhelming musical power has always been Testaments domain. With Dark Roots Of Earth, (their 10th album) the Bay Area quintet have delivered their most mature, complete and intense collection in 25 years together, nine mind-bending, pit-stirring classics that will instantly crush your skull while also serving a delicious amount of depth and nuance to devour. Its partially fantasy-based, partially based on the prophecies of the Mayan calendar, partially based on the whole prophecy of the end-of-the-world says guitarist/founder-member Eric Peterson, but nature always ends up taking charge in the aftermath, we always end up back with nature being in charge. Our world is changing, furthers vocalist Chuck Billy, it has changed over the last 10 years, the environment, the seasons, and it (makes you wonder) if there might be something to those prophecies. Its hard not to see what the medias feeding us, adds Peterson, The End of The World is like a big billboard, an advertisement, and I think a lot of people believe in it. It took a trip to the British countryside for Peterson to start connecting the dots between the initial creative embers explained above and the collection of riffs Testament had conceived for Dark Roots of Earth. Like heroes such as Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, who often wandered off to rural outposts for inspiration, much of the albums heart and soul was conceived in darkest, rural Derbyshire with producer Andy Sneap at his Backstage Studios. Andys a guitarist himself, comes from our background and understands what were trying to do, explains Eric, so I asked him if I could go spend a week visiting to pull ideas together. Going theres a whole other world. It used to be dairy farm, theres lambs, cows, goats, ghosts, noises, (some) really spooky stuff in the old section where you can hear people walking up the stairs and doors slamming, its all pretty inspirational. You wake up after surviving the night, sit with your tea, toast and marmite, you look outside and its rainy but green everywhere, put on your guitar and SCHOOP its killer, I love it. I went out there because I was hitting a brick wall with ideas, and I came back with nine songs in one week. We wanted to have a (proper) starting point, furthers Billy, instead of jumping in the rehearsal room and saying, what have you got? What have you got?! During the subsequent working process for Dark Roots of Earth, Peterson and Skolnick found a symbiotic dovetail into the heart of Testament which saw them at times trading-off on their six-string rolls, Peterson sometimes whipping out a lead and Skolnick sometimes being the rhythm pig. Thus, whilst Billy was spending time in LA with long-time writing collaborator Del James working on lyrics, Peterson and Skolnick were returning to their old method of writing, and Dark Roots of Earth confidently took its fully matured shape. The whole thing about doing covers successfully is taking the song and making it your own so as people think wow, thats different, says Peterson, and we certainly achieved that with Dragon Attack and Animal Magnetism. I wanted to find songs that were familiar but didnt necessarily have heavy guitars or anything, adds Billy, so when the Queen song came up, I thought vocally I could hear re-doing that, and musically (wed) make it Testament, get rid of the bass and take it over with guitar! When I suggested Animal Magnetism I think it was like when Chuck suggested Dragon Attack where I just could not picture it but he had a vision of how we were going to play it, says Peterson It was the same with Animal I knew I was going to tune it down really low and make it like Frankenstein or something once I got into the mood and really just let it flow, it came naturally, says Billy, this dark, heavy thing which sucks you in and gets ya! I remember (hearing) that Chuck wasnt going to sing make love to me, chuckles Peterson, and he had to be talked into doing it or something like that! I didnt say it for any chorus, and on that last chorus I said make but the power of pro-tools Billy laughs, I didnt really say it!!! Meanwhile, Powerslave is a raucous and shameless exercise in Maiden geek love! Yeah, we just selfishly put it on there because Im a big fan of it! grins Peterson, Maidens version is (the one) and we pretty much kept it at that because it was really fun to play like that!

Track listing:
1. Rise Up
2. Native Blood
3. Dark Roots Of Earth
4. True American Hate
5. A Day In The Death
6. Cold Embrace
7. Man Kills Mankind
8. Throne Of Thorns
9. Last Stand For Independence
10. Dragon Attack-Queen cover
11. Animal Magnetism-Scorpions cover
12. Powerslave-Iron maiden cover