Testament - The Gathering (1999)

At the time I remember being vaguely bummed about this album as I felt it fell a bit short of the mark considering the extraordinary line-up. fast forward fifteen or so years and I am glad that I decided to revisit this album as now more than ever I am appreciative of good ol' fashioned songwriting. Plain and simple. Nothing too fancy or overly complicated, and that's pretty much what 'The Gathering' is about.

I think at the time everyone expected this mind-blowing technical escapade and felt a pang of disappointment when that ended up not being the case. I can say with confidence that I was not ready for this album at the time of its release. I don't think I would've liked it even with the perception I have now. It's just something whose time has finally come to pass and I can say now that this is among my favorites of the band's releases next to 'Low' and 'The Legacy'. 'The Gathering' is also a tremendous improvement over the band's previous album 'Demonic', not to mention the fact that with 'The Gathering' Testament managed to step back on track as 'Demonic' is an anomaly to the band's catalog.

This is one of those albums that I rediscovered after having written it off so long ago and it only gets better with each listen.