As I said in my last two Testament reviews, "The Legacy" and "The New Order" are established thrash metal classics, each full of melodic, thrashy, memorable goodness. For their third studio album, "Practice What You Preach", Testament kept a lot of their signature style of melodic thrash metal, but they definitely shifted their style a noticeable amount as well.
The main stylistic shift with "Practice What You Preach" is in the vocals. There is much more focus here on vocal melodies, and most of the vocals are clean, notably barring a few dynamic death-growls by Chuck Billy that he would later incorporate more and more into Testament's music.
A huge highlight of Testament's music so far has been Alex Skolnick's guitar solos. I can say that I believe every single song off "The Legacy" to have a great guitar solo. The solos on "Practice..." are still cool, but, notably except for the one off the title track (which I go into detail for in the track-by-track below), they just aren't as memorable or epic as many of those off "The Legacy" and "The New Order".
The production is okay. It's noticeably less "raw" sounding and feeling than the first two albums, and it feels mostly "right" with the stylistic shift. I guess it is pretty good for this era, although I would say that Megadeth's "Rust in Peace" or Judas Priest's "Painkiller", both of which followed by only one year, had much better production.
TRACK-BY-TRACK FOLLOWS
"Practice What You Preach" starts with the anthem-like title track. We quickly hear that Testament have not laid up on the technical, melodic riffing. This song has a somewhat less heavy feel than some of the best tracks off "The Legacy" and "The New Order"; it feels a bit more upbeat and less dark, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Chuck Billy's vocals on this song are pretty much all sung melodically. This is probably one of Testament's most accessible tracks for someone getting into them. The chorus, consisting of the name of the song, is catchy. After the first chorus about halfway into the song, Eric Peterson begins a simple melodic lead (which, I might add, he seems to have built on when they play this song live). Peterson's lead is short, but it gives way to what is far and away the highlight of the song, as well as one of those off the entire album and even one of those of Testament's career: Alex Skolnick's guitar solo. While I personally loved all of Skolnick's solos on the first two albums, this solo has something about it that establishes it for me as one of the most epic and underrated metal guitar solos of all time. It is very technical and fast, but at the same time it is melodic. It starts out as a chaotic flurry of notes which displays the technical level that Alex Skolnick is at as a shredder, but it progresses very melodically. Throughout this solo Skolnick uses all sorts of guitar tricks, but they are all used with a great sense of dynamics. This is a guitar solo that invokes chills upon every listen for me. Not many can do that. This may be my personal favorite guitar solo of all time, and it has everything a solo needs to be objectively great as well; placement within the song, feel in regards to the song, melodicness, flashiness, and, well, just sounding awesome. As the song comes to a close after the song goes past Skolnick's epic solo, one has a feeling that this is going to be somewhat different from the first two albums, but judging from this song alone so far, this album seems to have potential. That said, the song is a tad cheesy and has a simple song structure, but it is more than redeemed by the guitar solo. 9.25/10
Following the title track is "Perilous Nation". The vocal melodies in this song are quite memorable, especially in the chorus. Digitaldreamdoor, a web site whose specialty is music lists, has this as Testament's top song (under "Top 10 Songs by the Greatest Metal Artists"), and I would strongly disagree, but this song is not bad. About halfway through the song, we hear another Skolnick guitar solo that fits very well into the song. Indeed, lead guitar playing is one of Testament's greatest strengths, throughout their entire career so far, although I will note that Testament's current line-up, consisting of the original members but with the mighty Gene Hoglan on the drums, is extremely talented all-around. Anyway, as I said, "Perilous Nation" isn't bad and, as usual for Testament at this point, is full of great lead guitar work, but it lacks some of the huge riffs that we've heard so far from Testament. It gets a good 7.25/10.
After Digitaldreamdoor's favorite Testament song (?) is "Envy Life". In the intro we actually hear one of Chuck Billy's first recorded genuine death-growls. Cool! Anyway, this might sadly be one of the more forgettable songs on the album in my opinion other than this little vocal landmark. It doesn't have an evilly catchy riff like in "The New Order"'s low point, "A Day of Reckoning", but it's hard to say if that's good or bad, since there just isn't that much memorable at all about this song for me. So far this album has had more of a straightforward, melodic metal feel, rather than all-out melodic thrash that the first two albums had a very strong feel of. This isn't necessarily bad, but it isn't really Testament's specialty. The song comes to an end; indeed, not much memorable sadly. 6.5/10
"Time is Coming" is after "Envy Life". This song has some memorable riffs and vocal lines. The chorus is catchy. Solo is cool, fits the song well but doesn't feel as epic as most of Skolnick's other solos. Not much else to say about this one but again the riffs and chorus are memorable. 7.25/10
"Blessed in Contempt" follows "Time is Coming". This is pretty thrashy, although it's not exactly an all-out thrashfest. That said, this is probably about on the level of the title track, minus the title track's epic guitar solo. 8.25/10
Following "Blessed in Contempt" is "Greenhouse Effect". The vocal melodies on this song are good. It seems that at this point Testament have kind of shifted focus a bit to emphasizing vocal melodies. The guitar solo is pretty cool in this one as well. Again, this track is somewhat lacking in the epic thrash feeling of many of Testament's other tracks, especially from the first two albums. 7.25/10
After "Greenhouse Effect" is "Sins of Omission". This is actually one of my favorites on this album. Memorable and melodic riffing. The vocal melodies, though, are very catchy and memorable. I found the chorus especially cool sounding. Another death growl transitions into a lead guitar section a bit before three minutes in. The lead guitar work in this song is cool but doesn't feel as epic as that in the title track or in a good number of Testament's other songs. That said, this is a pretty cool song. It does get me nodding my head. 8.5/10
Testament's first recorded ballad, appropriately titled "The Ballad", is after "Sins of Omission". A good portion of the song has clean guitars. The song doesn't really build up progressively, but a guitar solo transitions effectively into a heavier part with distorted guitars. At around 3:48 the beat picks up, which is cool. The second guitar solo is also pretty cool sounding. Testament did okay here with their first recorded ballad, but I feel it could have been more powerful. That said, I don't know how... Eh. Not bad though. 7.75/10
Following "The Ballad" is "Nightmare (Coming Back to You)". This is kind of fast and feels somewhat thrashy as well, although not as much so as a lot of other Testament. The chorus hints of catchyness, but this is kind of just another song on the album, albeit the last one with vocals. 7.25/10
The final track on "Practice What You Preach" is the odd, somewhat-appropriately-titled "Confusion Fusion". The riffs kind of have a (probably intentionally) weird feel. This isn't bad but isn't one of Testament's strongest instrumentals. I guess the main riff could potentially get stuck in one's head but thankfully it hasn't happened to me. (I say thankfully because it's just not that cool-sounding; memorable for the wrong reason). 6.75/10
END TRACK-BY-TRACK
I personally think that Testament were much better at raw, melodic thrash metal than they are with the more vocally-focused style that they adopted with "Practice What You Preach". This is probably still classifiable as thrash metal, but it feels a lot more like straightforward metal, which of course isn't at all a bad thing, but again I feel it isn't Testament's specialty. Some of the guitar solos on this album are cool, and the solo on the title track is nothing short of epic, but despite that Skolnick kept advancing as a player, the solos on this album mostly aren't as memorable as those on "The Legacy" or "The New Order". This isn't bad stuff, but doesn't live up to the bar Testament set for themselves as thrashers with the first two albums. 7.25/10.
Testament would continue down the more straightforward road for two more albums (both of which I will review) until, actually, a lineup change brought about another stylistic shift towards heaviness the likes of which Testament had only hinted at before.
Thanks for reading!
TL;DR:
Rating: 7.25/10
Highlights: Practice What You Preach (and its epic guitar solo at around 2:19), Sins of Omission
