Souls of Black is the fourth studio album by American thrash metal band Testament. The album was released on October 9, 1990.
Video Souls of Black
Background
Souls of Black preceded several changes in style to rather diverse styles of metal, including the traditional heavy metal sound heard in its succeeding album, The Ritual. The songs on the album are musically re-worked and lyrically re-written songs that had been demoed in the late 1980s, but never officially released.
One of the main reasons behind the making of Souls of Black was so that Testament could participate in the European Clash of the Titans tour with Megadeth, Slayer and Suicidal Tendencies, which began just prior to the album's release. Guitarist Eric Peterson explained to Guitar World magazine, "We kind of rushed out Souls of Black just to get on the bill, because we didn't want to miss the tour and our label said we had to have an album out. We had done some touring with Slayer that year, and we did shows with Megadeth two or three years prior to that."
Maps Souls of Black
Reception
Reviews for Souls of Black have generally been mixed. Allmusic's Alex Henderson awards it two-and-a-half stars out of five, saying "Testament sounds very much like it did on its three previous albums and is as heavy as ever", while he added that Souls of Black "isn't in a class with The New Order, but is nonetheless a welcome addition to Testament's generally rewarding catalog."
The album entered the Billboard 200 album charts on November 3, 1990, peaking at number 73 and remaining on the chart for eight weeks. Souls of Black is also seen as an influential guitar album, being ranked number nine on Guitar World magazine's top ten list of guitar albums of 1990.
Track listing
Trivia
A re-recorded version of the title track appeared on the 2008 video game Rock Band 2.
Credits
- Chuck Billy - vocals
- Alex Skolnick - lead guitar
- Eric Peterson - rhythm guitar
- Greg Christian - bass
- Louie Clemente - drums
- Additional backing vocals by Mark Walters, Steve Quartarola and Bogdan Jablonski
- Recorded at Fantasy Studios, Berkeley, California
- Produced by Michael Rosen and Testament
- Engineered by Michael Rosen
- Assistant engineer: Vincent Wojno
- Mastered by Tom Coyne at Hit Factory, New York City
- Front cover painting by William Benson
Charts
References
Source of article : Wikipedia
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