Testimony - Inhale the Sadness (2000)

   From the middle '90s a new wave of extreme metal showed up in the small Hungarian metal scene. This included black metal bands like Frost, Sear Bliss, Ahriman and Christian Epidemic which bands became well known names in the underground lately, and some short lived death metal related bands, like Diafragma, Testimony and Dark Clouds (later Nadir). The common thing between all of these bands came partly by their currently changing times, and partly by their local and main scene influences. And from this list probably Testimony was the most promising one.

  For newby death metal bands this era was quite unfortunate timing, since the genre kinda died out from the middle of the decade, and mostly a few bands remained active, who switched style or involved other influences into their music. Testimony also had mixed influences, but unlike in the first death metal bands of the Hungarian scene, things turned out pretty good and their music was unified enough to have it's own character. They didn't sound like randomly grouped amateur musicians, who just wanted to make some noisy music, more like a band who found common ground and knew exactly what they wanted. On "Inhale the Sadness" they didn't even try to recall old school death, but instead they intended to find their own style in those musically hectic and experimenting times. Their music was like balancing on the top of a 3 edged knife: partly old school death, partly melodic death, but doom influences also had important role. Still, none of these directions became determining enough to pick a side. The album is melodic, but didn't lose it's death metal features like most melodic death bands used to. Also the melodic death features working well with the doom related themes, which are holding back everything to slip too far into the other 2 directions. The approach is unique, complex, but the results are simple and easy to go into. Easier than into old school death or death/doom, but it's heavier than ordinary melodic death. A few lesser known bands from the '90s did something similar, but the possibility of their direct influences could be expellable. Also their motivations were different. For instance Ascaris from Poland reached some analogy at the end of the death metal era, while they were looking for a more melodic alternative path for themselves. And even though Apophis from Germany did have a release with relatable tone ("Heliopolis"), but experimenting ambitions and seeking new, weird perspectives were usual at early German death metal bands. The analogy based concept of this mixed in influences, but simple and unified Central-Eastern European extreme music phenomenon might sound weird, but reflects well the local tendencies of the late '90s. However, by "Inhale the Sadness" Testimony became one of the few Hungarian metal bands who reached international level with their music (after Tormentor and Atomic), and unfortunately similar to them, they count as underrated and their active period didn't last as long as it supposed to be.