TESTAMENT

I thought Shub-Niggurath's earlier albums were OK but not brilliant zeuhl pieces which didn't really stand out from the crowd very much. This time around, though, they seem to be going for a dark ambient sound but are attempting to produce it using more or less conventional rock instrumentation. The end results are not appealing. They're neither quiet, slow, and placid enough to be particularly good ambient - not even industrial ambient - and there isn't quite enough happening for actual rock compositions to emerge from the noise. The end result is more or less indistinguishable from a band tuning up, or endlessly playing the intro to a song which never gets around to starting.