Thrash metal veteans Testament have been busily beavering away on their new studio album - their first since 2020's critically acclaimed Titans Of Creation - and in a new interview frontman Chuck Billy has revealed that the band will be expanding their sonic palette on multiple fronts. In fact, not only have Testament written what sounds like a rare type of song compared to their usual style, but they've brought in none other than Nightwish frontwoman Floor Jansen for a special guest appearance.
"On this record, I don't wanna say the word 'ballad', but we wrote a slower song like we had back in the 80s and 90s that we wrote on this record,"Billy tells AMFM (as transcribed by Blabbermouth). And it's really awesome, really good. We're gonna bring in a guest vocalist, Floor Jansen from Nightwish. She's gonna sing on it with me. And we're gonna put in some string section into the song."
Slow? Orchestral? With Floor Jansen on vocals? You certainly can't accuse Testament of playing it safe four decades into their career.
"We're not afraid to take those chances where a lot of bands criticize you, like, 'Oh, we don't write ballads. 'What are you doing that [for]?'" he adds. "But you know what? At this point in our lives and career, we're writing to make us happy first and foremost and what feels good, what feels right, and this song just felt right right now to kind of do this again."
Testament's new album is expected to arrive in 2025 via Nuclear Blast. Reviewing Titans Of Creation in 2020, Metal Hammer's Dom Lawson wrote: "Testament have never sounded heavier, nor more utterly committed to crushing everything in sight...Testament may be veterans, but on Titans Of Creation they sound like a lean, hungry and acutely focused band of brothers, on a laudable mission to pulverise the world. Sign up or get flattened."
