Warthur The early Testament albums didn't win me over, but I find myself enjoying The Gathering more than any of them. Significantly more aggressive than the sound they emerged with on their first couple of albums, the album injects a few extreme metal influences (such as the occasionally bestial vocals) into a thrash metal format. The end result doesn't really sound much like classic Testament - instead, it's reminiscent of the sort of album everyone wishes Metallica will release but which they never quite get around to doing, recapturing the classic thrash sound of the late 1980s and applying the lessons of a decade of developments in extreme metal to it.

UMUR The Gathering is the 8th full-length studio album by American thrash metal act Testament. The album was released in June 1999 by Spitfire/ Burnt Offerings. The Gathering features an all-star lineup which in addition to the usual suspects, lead vocalist Chuck Billy and guitarist Eric Peterson, also feature James Murphy who returns on guitar, Steve DiGiorgio who plays the bass and Dave Lombardo who plays the drums on the album. All of them skilled and prolific metal musicians.

The music on The Gathering is powerful and very well played thrash metal. Testament brought with them the good elements from Demonic (1997), which means the raw power of that album, and then added a more melodic touch. This gives the songs a more memorable nature than the songs on Demonic. The addition of especially Dave Lombardo on the drums really gives the music a great organic touch. He is on fire on this album. The songs are generally of high quality and The Gathering is definitely one of the better Testament albums IMO.

The production is powerful and suits the music perfectly.

The Gathering is a great album by Testament and as mentioned above this is one of the better albums by the band. Still the trademark Testament style gets a bit trivial before the album is over which is why I won´t give a full 4 star rating. A 3.5 star rating is more than deserved though.