TESTAMENT: Russian Dates Announced

Veteran San Francisco Bay Area metallers TESTAMENT have scheduled two dates in Russia in June:

June 01 - Moscow, Russia - Shadow Club
June 03 - Saint-Petersburgh, Russia - Port Club

In other news, fellow Bay Area metallers DEATH ANGEL, who were scheduled to perform with TESTAMENT on their Southern California/Las Vegas dates, have dropped off the bill. The following dates will go ahead with TESTAMENT and LAAZ ROCKIT:

April 10 - Santa Ana, CA - The Coach House
April 11 - Las Vegas, NV - The Canyon Club
April 12 - Hollywood, CA - The Key Club

TESTAMENT guitarist Eric Peterson 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 recorded the effort in part 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.