With a sinister CD cover, and song titles like "Down For Life" and "Legions Of The Dead," the latest release from "Testament" is neither subtle in its presentation, and doesn't beat around the bush about its content or direction.

"The Gathering" opens on the wickedly heavy "DNR (Do Not Resuscitate)," with a foreboding orchestral and tribal drum, sinks in for a few peaceful moments before an unholy wall of sound comes careening through the headphones. Louie Clemente's furious drumming barely keeps up with the speeding metal riffs of Eric Peterson.

Barely one song into this album, it's clear the listener is in for a full-on assault lyrically and musically, but don't make any plans on singing along to this one or learning the lyrics. Chuck Billy's beastly death metal voice makes for a rather abrasive aural experience. If you're into his brand of metal histrionics, moans and vocal attack, then Billy's singing will be right up your alley.

"Down for Life" follows "DNR," with Billy's pained yelling and a James Hetfield "Am I Evil" vocal style. With nothing pretty or soothing whatsoever about "Down for Life," it could easily serve as a soundtrack to a road trip into the bowels of Hell. It's not cute or danceable, and that's OK. "Testament" is perfectly comfortable with leaving the cute and the easy listening to MTV and Top 40 radio. Evil lurks just around the corner on "Eyes of Wrath." Billy's devilish vocal grinding and the song's eerie opening balances out the rest of the doom and gloom in "Eyes of Wrath," which ends on the death metal equivalent of a Grateful Dead extended blues jam in spirit, only 10,000 times heavier.

Chuck Billy comes as close to a ballad as he's going to get on "True Believer." It is nothing like a touching love ballad, but it is a head banging blend of metal power and crooning. It starts off on a cool Sonic Youth/Metallica down-tuned guitar rumbling and plows headlong into a demonically heavy cruncher, but is ruined by Clemente's annoying double bass pedal throughout the song. Lyrically, "True Believer" reveals the ultimate shortcoming of the album, of "Testament" and of bands that are forever stuck in the mid to late 1980's death metal mode. "Never gonna change me," Billy screeches as only he can, which pretty much sums up what the band is all about as they slide into the next millennium with the rest of us. A listen to their newest material shows that it's not far from what they recorded a decade ago. It's sounds exactly the same as it did back then.

"Testament" hasn't evolved or grown over the years, which is only good if you're The Ramones or AC/DC. But "Testament" is no Joey Ramone or Angus Young. They have measurable talent, but without evolving and maturing over the years, no band of their caliber will ever go very far. They seem quite committed to the typical death metal apocalyptic vision and they relish wallowing in pseudo-evil imagery, but it can't be taken very seriously, even with Chuck Billy asking, "Do you believe there's an evil in my soul?" No, I don't, but I believe you do, and that's too bad.

Here comes that damned double bass pedal junk again in "Three Days In Darkness." Close in theory to a Metallica/Slayer tribute band, this one makes you wonder out loud if anyone still takes this death metal shmuck as seriously as "Testament" seems to. The most thrilling musical moments of "The Gathering" come in the Mach-10 overdrive of "Legions Of The Dead." You'd better strap yourself in for this one. When it does slow down, tiny almost imperceptible bits of old fashioned rock and roll seep out of the abrasive guitar riffs, but then the guttural screeching of Chuck Billy comes back, and it's more of the same. The profoundly worded line "We're living in a fucked up world" almost shows some insight and social awareness. We are living in a fucked up world, but this stuff's not going to fix it.

A few moments of sonically pleasant picking and strumming is rudely and oh so violently interrupted on "Careful What You Wish For" by - you guessed it - more lightning fast death metal and gorilla-on-crack vocals by Billy. It has the same tone, the same rhythm and leaves the same bad after taste and earache as the previous tracks. I almost feel sorry for the band over their inability to mature and mutate over the last 10 years. Music can't grow and get better if you keep playing the same stuff over and over and over, which is what "The Gathering" is all about.