Bad Religion - Tested (1997) RESTORED

"Tested" is a true experimentation in the concept of live albums. As opposed to one show, where the band may be acting, feeling, or playing a certain way, Bad Religion offers a large sample of the 1996 European tour. Sixty shows in 57 cities were recorded and narrowed down to create this incredible album.

Tested is a live album by punk rock band Bad Religion that was recorded live in USA, Canada, Germany, Estonia, Denmark, Italy and Austria in 1996 and released in 1997. The unique thing about this album is the way that it was recorded. Instead of crowd mikes and "mobile studios", the band simply tapped the inputs. This results in a clean and crisp sound that accurately portrays Bad Religion's live sound, though without crowd noise. It also includes three new songs; "Dream Of Unity", "It's Reciprocal", and the title track.



The first official Bad Religion live album is a bit of a letdown, too hung up on delivering an "absolutely live" document that is free of the bogus studio overdubs that make other so-called "live" albums frauds of the highest order. While that's an admirable insistence, in the process they forget what makes great concert LPs: a mixture of red-hot sound, fervid playing, and a "you are there" feel. By recording all the shows on their Gray Race tour, and taking more or less a song from each concert for this CD, they get the optimal performance of each song, but all continuity of sound is lost, as is the documentative aspect of one good show (i.e., you're not there). Worse, for all of singer Greg Graffin's crowing in the liner notes about the unique way the music was recorded — bypassing the mixing desk — the actual overall sound is merely average. It's crisp but not propulsive, with the drums too loud in the mix. In fact, several live recordings of the band from the B-sides of their 1995 import EPs blow this away. (And though it only covers the quintet's first and third LPs, BR's import live video, Along the Way, is also superior to Tested, and remains the true live document.) What a wasted opportunity. Nonetheless, with a band this top-notch, even such a merely passable, perfectly clear recording demonstrates their awesome punk prowess enough (especially that of singer Graffin, whose phenomenal pipes soar all over this) to make Tested a large pleasure just the same. Three unreleased tracks appear as well. One of them, "Dream of Unity", is uncharacteristically half-baked and slightly dull, but both "Tested" and "It's Reciprocal" burn the laser off the player.

~ Jack Rabid, The Big Takeover

Tracklist:

01. Operation Rescue
02. Punk Rock Song
03. Tomorrow
04. A Walk
05. God Song
06. Pity The Dead
07. One Thousand More Fools
08. Drunk Sincerity
09. Generator
10. Change Of Ideas
11. Portrait Of Authority
12. What It Is
13. Dream Of Unity
14. Sanity
15. American Jesus
16. Do What You Want
17. Part III
18. 10 In 2010
19. No Direction
20. Along The Way
21. Recipe For Hate
22. Fuck Armageddon
23. It's Reciprocal
24. Struck A Nerve
25. Leave Mine To Me
26. Tested
27. No Control




Produced & Mixed by Bad Religion & Ronnie Kimball.
The rest of the songs were recorded during concerts in: Berlin (Germany), Rome (Italy), Roskilde (Denmark), Pittsburgh (PA, USA), Loreley (Germany), Melbourne (FL, USA), Toronto (Ontario, Canada), Dortmund (Germany), Detroit (MI, USA), Berlin (Germany), New York (NY, USA), Ithaca (NY, USA), Raleigh (NC, USA), Munich (Germany), Tallinn (Estonia), Baltimore (MD, USA), Vancouver (British Columbia, Canada), Chicago (IL, USA), San Francisco (CA, USA), Jacksonville (FL, USA), Montreal (Quebec, Canada).

The songs "Tested", "Dream of Unity" and "It's Reciprocal" hadn't been released previously and they were the only ones on the album recorded not live but in studio.
Mastered by George Marino at Sterling Sound, NYC.

• Greg Graffin – lead vocals
• Greg Hetson – guitars
• Brian Baker - guitars, backing vocals
• Jay Bentley – bass, backing vocals
• Bobby Schayer - drums

Release Date: January 1, 1997
Label: Sony Music GmbH
Catalog No.: DRA 486986-2