TESTAMENT: 'Brotherhood Of The Snake' Artist Explains Album Cover

"Brotherhood Of The Snake", the twelfth album from San Francisco Bay Area thrash metal veterans TESTAMENT, will be released on October 28 via Nuclear Blast.

The cover was once again created by renowned artist Eliran Kantor, who also handled the art for the TESTAMENT's last album, 2012's "Dark Roots Of Earth", and also worked with bands like HATEBREED, SOULFLY and KATAKLYSM in the past.

Kantor stated about how the "Brotherhood Of The Snake" cover was conceived: "Eric [Peterson, TESTAMENT guitarist] told me of the title, referring to a secret society group, and I wanted to focus on the occult aspect of it without leaning on the already available myths.

"I pictured a ritual involving blindfolded figures coming out of chalices of black oil, holding scythes forming the teeth of a three-headed snake.

"Looking for ways to incorporate the masonic pyramid felt like a great opportunity to use the classic logo while adding something new to it, and also give it an active part in the plot.

"There are many tiny details adding to the atmosphere: red tongue bookmarks in the books, two more ancient-looking figures in the shadows hinting at the brotherhood's lineage, two serpent-shaped fountain tubes pouring the black oil, etc. etc. The latter two were suggested by the band."

"Brotherhood Of The Snake" track listing:

01. Brotherhood Of The Snake
02. The Pale King
03. Stronghold
04. Seven Seals
05. Born In A Rut
06. Centuries Of Suffering
07. Neptune's Spear
08. Black Jack
09. Canna-Business
10. The Number Game

"Brotherhood Of The Snake" was recorded under the watchful eyes of producer Juan Urteaga (EXODUS, HEATHEN, MACHINE HEAD),guitarist Eric Peterson and singer Chuck Billy and was mixed and mastered by British metal producer Andy Sneap (ACCEPT, ARCH ENEMY, CRADLE OF FILTH, KREATOR, MACHINE HEAD, MEGADETH).

Regarding the lyrical themes covered on "Brotherhood Of The Snake", Chuck told Metal Wani: "Well, it's kind of like a concept record. I know, going into it, the past records, I was writing songs that were more personal and there were topics that were kind of real — losing a family member or anything that's real; that's what we were kind of writing. And Eric really wanted to kind of get back to, 'Let's write some cool stories and cool words and cool lyrics.' And so I was, like, 'Okay, that's cool.' And then, I kind of, at the time, was watching a TV series; it was a show called 'Ancient Aliens' that was on once a week. And it showed a lot of the connection between aliens and religion. And it kind of got my attention, because there was different religions all around the world, different spots in the world, where there was always the same alien being with big heads and strange bodies and flying objects in the sky. And it kind of made me realize, wow, how, that many thousands of years ago, did they communicate and see these same things unless it was real, unless there's something about it. So it really made me think, maybe there is something to these aliens and our existence and religion and everything. And then I stumbled on to the 'brotherhood of the snake' and the story of that. And that was about a secret society over six thousand years ago that were out on a crusade just to dig down religions. And there was an alien king, Anu, who basically created mankind as a slave for them to mine the minerals and gold from our planet earth. So it was kind of, like, 'Wow!' From an 'Ancient Aliens' show to this… There's something there that we can kind of run on and get the lyrics going and tell the storyline about. So that kind of got the ball rolling."

TESTAMENT will promote "Brotherhood Of The Snake" by teaming up with AMON AMARTH for a European tour this fall.