TESTAMENT Guitarist Says New Album Is 'Very Traditional-Sounding'

Guitarist Eric Peterson of the veteran San Francisco Bay Area thrashers TESTAMENT recently spoke to Decibel magazine about the group's forthcoming album, "The Formation of Damnation", due in North America on April 29 via Nuclear Blast Records.

The band recently spent time recording the effort with producer Andy Sneap (MACHINE HEAD, EXODUS, ARCH ENEMY, NEVERMORE) at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, California.

"The album is very traditional-sounding," Peterson told Decibel. "The ideology of what we're doing is like 'The Legacy' [1987]. But the musicianship's a lot better, so it's like 'The Gathering' [1999]. As most bands record their first, second and third albums, they're developing, developing, developing… until they've got their sound. Then they get worse. As a rule, you get good when you're starving and start slipping as soon as you're eating well. We never really made it to the big time. But, then again, we didn't fail. Because we've always been on that borderline, we've never had to make the kinds of compromises that end up killing so many bands. As we see it, we're better off doing what we do best, especially since things seem to have turned full circle. Kids even have long hair again."

TESTAMENT recently recruited Paul Bostaph (SLAYER, EXODUS, FORBIDDEN, SYSTEMATIC) to play the drums on new CD. The group was previously rehearsing and writing new material with British drummer Nick Barker (CRADLE OF FILTH, DIMMU BORGIR),but Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and international work visa issues have prevented Barker from continuing to be involved in the project.

Bostaph, who was a member of TESTAMENT for a brief period starting around February 2004, had previously played several live dates with the group in 1992 and appeared on the band's 1993 live EP, "Return to the Apocalyptic City". He also toured with TESTAMENT in 2006.

TESTAMENT's current lineup is rounded out by Chuck Billy on vocals, Alex Skolnick on lead guitar and Greg Christian on bass.

A new photo of the current TESTAMENT formation can be found at this location.

Fan-filmed video footage of TESTAMENT performing at last year's edition of the Waldrock festival, which was held on July 7, 2007 in Burgum (Bergum),in the northern region of The Netherlands, can be viewed below.