TESTAMENT Is Already Working On Material For Next Album

TESTAMENT singer Chuck Billy has told Japan's Roppongi Rocks that the band will spend part of this month beginning work on the material for the follow-up to last year's "Brotherhood Of The Snake" album. "Right after we get home from [our Japanese tour], we start writing," he said. "We have all of March off and then April we hit the road. Thirty-seven shows. Us, SEPULTURA, PRONG. It'll be a good package," Chuck said of the lineup for the U.S. tour. "Then, June we will have off, somewhere in July we will continue writing. We got a couple of shows in July in Europe and then a short run in August. Then we're doing a major headline tour at the end of the year in Europe. We haven't done that in a while, so it's something I'm looking forward to."

Chuck also dismissed the notion that TESTAMENT might employ a more experimental approach on future albums. "There are so many [new] bands out there that I love, and love the music and [it sounds] so heavy, so new and fresh," he said. "But we can't do that — we can't change and shift gears now to do that, or we'll get criticized. We have to stay on the path that we started or we're gonna get criticized and then it's done."

He continued: "None of our records are the same. They always seem to change and shift in a little way but you always know it's TESTAMENT if you hear it."

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

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