TESTAMENT Guitarist On Next Album: 'It Looks Like It'll Be Pretty Heavy And Old-School'

TESTAMENT guitarist Eric Peterson has told Guitar World that he hopes the group's next album will be a more collaborative effort than 2016's "Brotherhood Of The Snake", which saw him writing all the music in about three months and then e-mailing the songs to his bandmates.

"I've talked with [lead guitarist] Alex [Skolnick] and he has some ideas," Peterson said. "Right now, I'm librarying riffs and it looks like it'll be pretty heavy and old-school. At the same time, I'm being careful not to copy what we've done before. I can't say for sure when it's gonna be finished, but it's gonna be killer."

This past September, TESTAMENT frontman Chuck Billy told Inquisitr that the band's next record would likely include a ballad. "We haven't done a ballad in 20-something years probably," he said. "I mean, a full-on ballad. 'Born In A Rut', off the other one ['Brotherhood Of The Snake'], it's soft and has melody, but it's not really a true ballad.

Chuck also talked about TESTAMENT's musical evolution, saying: "I think we're fortunate — TESTAMENT as a band — we're lucky to have Eric Peterson. He writes most of the music. He doesn't really follow a lot of other things. He has his black metal that he enjoys, and he likes his DRAGONLORD [Eric Peterson's side project] and loves playing that stuff. But he doesn't really listen to something current — that which is playing out there — which I think keeps him in his own creative groove. His own 'Eric Peterson TESTAMENT writing blinders' on. Which is good for us, because it's always kept TESTAMENT sounding like TESTAMENT. But, you know, Eric is also trying to squeeze things in there. Sort of like 'The Gathering' record. Elements of black metal with the blast beats and different elements that he enjoys — he's tried to work them into TESTAMENT. I think it's really kind of expanded us, and I'd say from that 'Gathering' point, we really kind of found our identity as a heavy metal band. It's kind of like a culmination of everything we did up to that point. Thrash, death, melodic vocals. Death vocals. And then when we came to 'The Gathering', all of it kind of got put in there. And the songwriting just started getting better."

"Brotherhood Of The Snake" was recorded under the watchful eyes of producer Juan Urteaga (EXODUS, HEATHEN, MACHINE HEAD),Peterson and Billy and was mixed and mastered by Andy Sneap.

TESTAMENT's U.S. tour as the support act for SLAYER wrapped in August in San Jose, California.