Pestilence - Testimony of the Ancients (1991)

Yes, Steve was a real person, except his name wasn't Steve

I used to know someone, let's call him Steve, who was going to write an ambitious twenty-eight-track prog metal album with twenty-two interludes, ending on five in a row. He proudly described his own project as "random", and cited Pestilence's "Testimony of the Ancients" as a major influence (also Morbid Angel's "Formulas...", but that one won't be covered today). One phrase from our conversations that stuck with me was "You always need more animal noises." It instilled a feeling in me that Steve was less than dead serious about his creative vision. Maybe both of us had a low opinion of interludes in a metal context, the difference being that I silently dismissed them while he chose the way of parody. The truth is, Steve's goal was to document his brain farts in sound form (his own words!), and squeezing proper music between them was an afterthought. We've lost contact, and I fear the world will be never graced with his twenty-eight-track masterpiece.

I wonder if Pestilence had a similar attitude to Steve and pulled an elaborate prank on "Testimony of the Ancients" by making every even-numbered track an interlude, for a total of eight out of sixteen tracks that aren't actual songs. Short stylistic detours can be hard to justify in busy music, like the death-thrash Pestilence is known for. A lot of good metal albums have a single pointless interlude (I count intros and outros here) that's disconnected from everything else, but it neither adds nor detracts because it's too short and unimpactful. Any segments that don't achieve anything are better off removed, so an interlude needs to be well integrated into an album and with a specific purpose. Let's be real, it's such an obviously bad idea to take a detour every few minutes, to systematically block the musical flow with faux Spanish guitars, mosquitoes, and sensual female moans. Most of these interludes last about 30 seconds, too short to develop any coherent idea. Although their combined length is a small fraction of the full runtime, the randomness of their content, as well as the almost complete lack of transitions, makes them impossible to ignore.

This cannot be an accident like botched production, one has to be very intentional in order to break flow to this degree. Anyone who suggests a playlist version of "Testimony..." with only the music admits the interludes are indeed that bad. The notable exceptions are "Impure" and "In Sorrow", which are integrated as outros to their preceding songs. Coincidentally, both of these tracks are longer, long enough to develop an idea, and the songs that precede them fade into them instead of ending abruptly. Those two are more than enough, though even "In Sorrow" is redundant to the previous song's outro. Songwriter and vocalist Patrick Mameli has said in interviews that a motivation to include so many interludes was that no one had done it in a metal album up to that point... which is not a good reason!

With that out of the way, the actual music is much better, but it still has its set of issues that make this album struggle to stand out from its predecessors. "Testimony of the Ancients" is split between two distinct approaches. The first and more common approach, which I'm going to call "main" from now on, is made of largely atonal guitar parts on the border between death metal and the aggressive side of thrash. That first approach is closer to the style of "Consuming Impulse" than that of "Maleus Maleficarum" - it switches between syncopated riffs with one or two higher-pitched notes to give them rhythmic definition and fast downpicked riffs with power chords spread throughout them for momentum. The drums match the pace of the guitars without drawing unnecessary attention to themselves, using a combination of modified backbeats, often with a vague swing to them, as well as skank beats for high tempos and double bass for build-ups. The other, less common, approach uses more traditionally melodic leads and solos, which wouldn't be out of place on a heavy metal album (examples: "Twisted Truth", "Land of Tears"). This second approach falls somewhere between Human-ITP era Death and progressive thrash bands such as Coroner. The main style arrangements are restrained compared to older albums, which makes for smoother transitions to the melodic sections, with fewer full-on thrashing sections and fewer discordant Slayer-esque solos.

These melodic sections work on their own and in the context of the songs, but don't quite meet Patrick Mameli's stated in interviews goal to move away from Pestilence's initial influences. The majority of music is still in the main death-thrash style, which I judge not so much as a deliberate attempt at contrast with the new melodic elements as much as a fallback to what's familiar for the band - it's more habitual than intentional. The quality of the main material is worse too. The current vocals are a flatter and less expressive version of the former member Martin van Drunen's incredibly distinct, maniacal rasping. Multiple riffs bounce and hobble around while failing to build any tension, with some others being outright filler made of exactly four power chords. "Secrecies of Horror" and "Prophetic Revelation" are entirely made out of such seemingly leftover riffs, which already cover a quarter of the proper music, with more mediocre material spread throughout.

The album eventually picks up during the last third of its runtime, but the band seems to be at its best when it strays away from its signature death-thrash style, as if the members are tired of it. The weak main style sections are also hampered by the production - it is dry, warm and clean, which isn't bad on its own but lacks the punch and grit for music that clearly tries to be aggressive. Both "Testimony of the Ancients" and "Maleus Maleficarum" have a guitar tone focused on mids and highs, however, the latter album had a gated bassy snare drum to drive up the intensity of every riff. In addition, the guitar tone on "Testimony..." has been deprived of any low end and dissonance, rendering it weak and thin. "Consuming Impulse" has a bass-heavy production all around, on top of Martin van Drunen's legendary vocals. Both "Maleus Maleficarum" and "Consuming Impulse" have enough reverb for a sense of greater scale without diluting the impact of any instrument. The only moments when this album has any real punch to it are when the kick and snare hit together, but that's only in comparison to the rest of the instruments, which have been hollowed out. This mix is serviceable for the more mellow melodic sections, but it robs the aggressive riffs of their impact. A production that's richer on bass, still warm and clean, paired with yelling thrash vocals, ala "Maleus Maleficarum", are easy improvements.

"Testimony of the Ancients" doesn't fundamentally diverge from its predecessors, so I can't help but compare it to them. The lower quality of the material is a bigger issue than it normally would be, because there are too many similarities, a criticism that doesn't apply to the follow-up "Spheres". However, the 80's roots of death metal have a fundamentally simple template, and there are only so many possibilities to explore before repeating or turning into something else altogether. Pestilence must have already been low on ideas by the turn of the decade, so they decided it was time to change course. Their evolution mirrored that of Death, both starting their careers as exemplars of oldschool death metal before showing future paths the genre would explore. The difference is that Death's base riffing and soloing style gradually changed over the course of multiple albums regardless of the external jazz or prog rock influences. Meanwhile, "Testimony of the Ancients" concentrates its new ideas in shorter, less cohesive segments instead of weaving them naturally into the core of the music. If the eight interludes weren't a self-aware joke, my only explanation for them is that Pestilence made a vain attempt to distance itself from the death metal scene, even when the rest of the music hadn't deviated much. I say this with the knowledge that Patrick Mameli feels a degree of disdain for the metal community, so I consider that motivation to be in character for him. The new melodic, and sometimes progressive, elements are good enough to base an album in the same style, though they're ultimately held back by the bulk of music, which reiterates the approach of "Consuming Impulse", but with worse arrangements, worse vocals and ill-fitting production. "Spheres" is much better, because it has its own identity outside the shadow of its predecessors.