Review Summary: The human race is now a race against time
In a way similar to something like The Last in Line, Testament’s sophomore album could be seen as a complement to their debut. The New Order carries over many of the tropes seen on The Legacy with the same focus on Alex Skolnick’s guitar leads, Chuck Billy’s multi-faceted vocals, arcane lyrics, and rhythms that are faster and tighter than ever. With The Legacy presenting venomous speed with a grandiose undercurrent, The New Order could be seen as attempting to go the other way around.
But while this album’s grander scope could be sugarcoated as a reflection of the band’s growing ambitions, the reality is a bit more mundane. The band members have since admitted that they didn’t have enough *actual* songs to meet the required length set by the contract with their label, resulting in every other song getting some variant of atmospheric intro along with a couple instrumentals and a haphazard cover of Aerosmith’s “Nobody’s Fault” thrown in. No word on why they didn’t include “Reign of Terror,” a Legacy-era track included as a B side on the “Trial by Fire” single…
With that said, the extra bloat isn’t something that I find to be a dealbreaker. The acoustics on the opening “Eerie Inhabitants” make for an incredibly effective way to kick off the apocalyptic thrashing and even if the intros on “Trial by Fire” and “Disciples of the Watch” are somewhat redundant in setup, they sound pretty and don’t disrupt the flow of the actual songs. I also like the instrumentals; “Hypnosis” provides a wistful two-minute reprieve with some splendid lead work. and “Musical Death (A Dirge)” lives up to its title as it closes out on a desolately somber note. There may not be an “Orion” equivalent on here, but it makes for pleasant listening.
And thankfully, there are also still plenty of self-contained thrashers to go around. The title track sustains the momentum from “Eerie Inhabitants” with an even faster pounding while “Into the Pit” pushes the riffs to their greatest intensity, ensuring another major live staple in the process along with the epically catchy “Disciples of the Watch.” “The Preacher” is a personal favorite, carrying over the storytelling angle of The Legacy with its Nostradamus musings set to rapid-fire verses, wild falsettos, and hard-hitting chants toward the end.
The New Order has a rather interesting place in the grand scheme of Testament’s discography. While it isn’t as controversial as some of the albums to come and is even a favorite among many fans, its status would probably be more cut-and-dry had the band presented it with more substantial songs. It’s certainly easy to nitpick the blatant filler moments but I also can appreciate how they highlight the band’s more dynamic and the songs that the band did bring in are some of their strongest ever. The New Order would’ve been a near flawless EP but still manages to be one of Testament’s best albums.
