Pestilence - Testimony Of The Ancients

Format: 2 x 12" Vinyl
Catalogue No.: HHR201715LP
Barcode: 8715392171512
Release Date: 09 Sep 2022
Genre: Death

An iconic landmark album within Death Metal. “Testinomy of the Ancients” gets the well-deserved reissue! Two years after releasing one of the best death metal albums ever to surface from The Netherlands, Pestilence hit jackpot again with their 1991 album “Testimony Of The Ancients”. The biggest differences with their previous effort “Consuming Impulse” are simple: The production is more clean, short intermezzos between all the songs, the average pace is lower and Patrick Mameli has taken over lead vocals. Pestilence has had a well-deserved place in the first wave death metal elite, mentioned in one breath with the likes of Death, Sepultura, Cynic, Atheist and the likes. Rightly so, because their progression up untill this album is comparable to, say, Carcass. With every album they developed their sound so no release sounds alike but still stays Pestilence undeniably. Their previous album “Consuming Impulse” was unprecedented in brutality and morbidness. ‘Testimony of the Ancients” is less relentless, but it makes up for that with an onimous dose of morbid melodies, great lyrics and an all out Lovecraftian atmosphere. The highlight of this album is definately the guitars. Patrick Mameli and Patrick Uterwijk are a great tandem, combining melodic (twin) soloing with screeches and crashes of tremolo filled chaos. Take for example the song “Land Of Tears”. The guitar solo starts out very emotional, almost ballad like and then switches into high gear, so that all listeners who were dreaming away immediately abbandon all hope for solution of the saddening first guitar part. Noteworthy also are the supportive keyboard samples, never obnoxious, always morbid. Other album highlights are the title track (with truly frightening and insane lyrics), ‘Twisted Truth’ with its catchy dynamics, ‘Profetic Revelations’ (excellent chorus) and basically the whole album is perfect. Special attention to the final track (the album sticks together with samples, which are all great by the way) ‘Stigmatized’. This is death metal perfection, combining Slayer, Death and even Iron Maiden to create a masterpiece of metal.

Tracklisting
Disc: 1
1. The Secrecies Of Horror
2. Bitterness
3. Twisted Truth
4. Darkening
5. Lost Souls
6. Blood
7. Land Of Tears
8. Free Us From Temptation
9. Prophetic Revelations
10. Impure
11. Testimony
12. Soulless
13. Presence Of The Dead
14. Mindwarp
15. Stigmatized
16. In Sorrow Disc: 2
1. Dehydrated
2. Chemo Therapy
3. Presence Of The Dead
4. The Process Of Suffocation
5. Lost Souls
6. Twisted Truth
7. Testimony
8. Chronic Infection
9. Stigmatized
10. Out of the Body
11. Darkening
12. Presence Of The Dead
13. Prophetic Revelations
14. Suspended Animation
15. The Secrecies of Horror
16. The Trauma
17. Land Of Tears