While speaking with Paul Salfen of AMFM Magazine, Testament frontman Chuck Billy let slip some juicy information about the band’s follow-up to their 2020 album Titans of Creation. And while we’ve known for some time that the record was in the works, what he revealed in that interview is incredibly intriguing to say the least.
It turns out that in the interview (as transcribed by Blabbermouth), Billy revealed that Nightwish’s vocalist Floor Jansen will not only be featured with a guest appearance on the upcoming record, but that her performance will be one half of a duet on one of the album’s “slower” songs.
“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. 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.
“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]?’ 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.”
Having been working on the album for some time now, we have to be getting closer and closer to hearing some new tunes from the upcoming release.
According to Billy, they’re getting closer and closer to releasing the damn thing, though there’s some more time needed before they’re done.
“We’re almost done recording right now. We finished, I’d say, three quarters of the recording before we left for Europe. And we have a three-week break now. And Steve’s [DiGiorgio, Testament bassist] in the studio finishing bass and Eric’s [Peterson, Testament guitarist] finishing up some of the rhythm guitars, but out of the 11 songs, I already tracked eight of ’em. So I just have a couple more songs to sing. We have another break after this U.S. tour in November. We’ll finish up all the backing vocals and anything that needs to be — after getting to live with it, which is something nice. We never really get to live with the music after recording. ‘It’s recorded. Here it is. Let’s go. It’s done, written in stone.’ Which is nice, is now we really get to live with it out on the road and talk about it together and say, ‘Hey, what if we did this or what if we tried that?’ And we’ve already came up with so much alternative stuff to try now. Like this week, Friday, I go in and I’m gonna try some new things on some vocal verses. We’re talking about tones of guitars and bringing in some string sections.”
We’ll have to keep an eye out for the new release when it comes out (hopefully) next year. In the meantime, you can catch Testament at any of the dates listed below.
10/22/2024 Denver, CO – Fillmore Auditorium [Tickets] 10/23/2024 Albuquerque, NM – Albuquerque Convention Center [Tickets] 10/24/2024 Phoenix, AZ – The Van Buren [Tickets] 10/26/2024 Los Angeles, CA – Palladium [Tickets] 10/27/2024 San Francisco, CA – The Warfield [Tickets]
