Testament revealed during a press conference at Hellfest that they've completed recording the followup to 2016's Brotherhood Of The Snake. Vocalist Chuck Billy and guitarist Eric Peterson said the new album will be mixed by Andy Sneap once he's done touring in July with Judas Priest.
According to Peterson, "lyrically, it's probably a little bit more storytelling, kind of evil shit, I guess. The label told us to write something evil, so…" Billy added that the music is definitely faster than Brotherhood Of The Snake.
"It's definitely faster than the last record. But I think the way we've been writing the last couple of records, we work a long time on the riffs, but when we get in the studio is when we really start putting the pressure on ourselves, and I think we've been working better under pressure. It's not my favorite time of year when it's time to write lyrics and get prepared to do the record, so it gets tough. But it really drives us to really reach down and do something. 'Cause when you get to a point when you wrote 120 songs, it's a little tough to get inspired by 'What else can I write?' 'What else can we do?' 'How do we keep it fresh?'"
"I give Eric credit, because he doesn't follow anybody else — he has his own taste in music, and he brings what he does to Testament. And it always keeps us on our toes, and me especially, because when I hear the riff, I expect, 'Maybe it's gonna be the old-school thrash — maybe.' But then when I get it, okay, I hear the thrash, but then there's some new elements and maybe some new chords that he chooses to play that maybe aren't comfortable for me. And when I first hear them, I go, 'Wow. That's different. Maybe I'm not so comfortable.' But it pushes me to experiment and challenge myself to try something different. And I think that's what keeps the Testament records always sounding different — we don't copy ourselves. So I'm very proud of what we did, because again we had our backs against the wall and a little pressure on us, and the songs came out great. And I think everybody's gonna enjoy the record again. We have some really good stuff on it — some good thrash, some good melodic stuff, some good melodies on the vocals. So there's a little bit of everything."
Watch the full press conference below.
