I've Had all the testament albums and this is the best. These guys were a thrash band in the Eighties. The best one in my opinion.Then in the nineties they went through a stint of pure death metal(demonic,low).
then in 99'.they took the elements of the thrash combined with their death style and put out the gathering without skolnick(og) but peterson writes most the material anyway i believe. there is no way they could have improved on this album. style,production, art, direction. top 5 best metal albums ever and I listen to a bit of metal.

The gathering took the heaviness of demonic with the energy of the legacy.

While a very solid album overall - one of the best in the thrash metal genre, this time they had good production but as James Murphy rejoined the band a bit late, there weren't too many solos despite having a more than capable guitar duo.

I can't think of a group that has been as consistently good as Testament, its like this group gets better with age. On Testament's eighth album The Gathering it seems like they were on top form, this album also has the best lineup I've seen so far. Joining the ranks of lead singer Chuck Billy and guitarist Eric Peterson is guitarist James Murphy, bassist Steve DiGiorgio and Dave Lambardo from Slayer making this an awesome lineup. This album definitely has a more tighter sound than the previous album with much better songs and theres less growling from Chuck and not to mention the riffs being faster and heavier with some extraordinary drumming (would you expect anything less from Lombardo?). The best songs are Eyes of wrath with its amazing solo at the end and True believer which was quite catchy if I don't say so myself. D.N.R. was also a great opening track and Legions of the dead was another highlight and also the heaviest track on the album and Careful what you wish for has some great lyrics showcasing the great song writing abilities of Chuck. Sewn shut eyes and Fall of sipledome are the more thrashier songs and has Chuck growling alot which reminds you of the album Demonic which wasn't really a favorite of mine, I think that the Gathering was an improvement. Overall I would say that The Gathering was a great album thats worth checking out especially if your a Testament fan or like heavy thrash music, this remastered edition also includes a bonus track called Hammer of the gods which is an instrumental track.

Buy this immediately! Trashiest thing Testament ever did and probably the Holy Grail of 90'ies trash metal...Dave Lombardo's work is simply mind-blowing in this one. Highly recommended.

this cd is a wake up...this just hits you with a bat over and over again...just an absolutely amazing disc for testament. This disc recieved little to no support much less advertising and was almost missed by me. I picked it up and was just amazed. The tightness of the band and these songs just speaks volumes of the artists energy, direction and skill. I believe adding dave (from slayer) to the mix was the best thing ever. This to me is the best cd testament has ever released, my fav before this was Low but this is really amazing from skill set and hooks, this is a cd you listen to from start to finish and leave on repeat.