Testament: Practice What You Preach (orange and bone swirl vinyl) [NUCLEAR BLAST]

Why you'll love it

This Nuclear Blast reissue comes on orange and bone swirl vinyl with a printed insert of lyrics, photos and credits. Practice What You Preach was Testament's breakthrough and their first album to reach the Top 100 of the Billboard 200.

This edition

• Orange and bone swirl vinyl
• Printed lyric insert
• Stereo mix

About the album

By 1989 Testament had two thrash records behind them and a reputation as one of the sharpest bands in the Bay Area. Practice What You Preach kept the speed but widened the view, swapping the occult themes of the early albums for songs about society, religion and the world outside the window, and borrowing ideas from traditional heavy metal, jazz fusion and progressive rock along the way.

Alex Perialas produced, reportedly cutting the band live in the studio, and you can hear the room. The title track has been a concert staple for more than three decades, "Greenhouse Effect" was an early environmental warning in metal, and "The Ballad" lets Chuck Billy and the guitars of Alex Skolnick and Eric Peterson stretch into something tender before the hammer comes down. "Perilous Nation" and "Blessed In Contempt" take aim at the world at large, "Sins Of Omission" and "Envy Life" are prime late-80s thrash, and the instrumental "Confusion Fusion" shows off the band's jazzier chops.

For the setlist obsessives, "Confusion Fusion" waited until 2025 to get its first live outing, a patience we usually reserve for distributors' delivery dates.

Also at Kops: more Testament on vinyl · browse Metal

Tracklist

Listen

On Nuclear Blast (cat# NBR 7292), a reissue of the 1989 album.