Label: Nuclear Blast Records
Release date: October 10, 2025
Production: Chuck Billy & Eric Peterson
Album length: 50.24 min
Genre: Thrash Metal
Rating: 9.0/10
“Para Bellum” is the fourteenth studio album from Bay Area Thrash Metal legends Testament. It’s yet another flawless piece of work from thrash’s big angry uncles! Extremely abrasive and devastating, yet packed with a nice helping of conceptual detours, which these seasoned old farts trade in with incredible skill. They know the wisdom of holding on to all the limitless aggression of a composition while still coaxing out an artistic twist that stuns! Yes. Stuns, even 36 years after the debut “The Legacy” came out. So even at album number 14, Testament remain synonymous with a legendary band that doesn’t know how to disappoint, and can’t. A band that has matured artistically over time (thanks, of course, to the genius of the members themselves, a true brotherhood), kept pace with the development of new tech (studio production possibilities in general) with real evolutionary skill, and deftly fitted all of it into its original thrash metal bristle.
In the summer of 2023 the band was joined by lesser-known drummer Chris Dovas, who previously played with Seven Spires. Hoglan left the band again at the start of 2022. Lombardo came back and helped Testament get through a tour of North America, but in August 2023 he too declined to keep working with the band. Stepping into the shoes of predecessors like Gene Hoglan and Dave Lombardo, especially as a youngster with a relatively short track record, is no small feat. But the worry is unnecessary. Dovas is razor-sharp and nails everything exactly as the high-quality standards of Testament demand. This is a band that has always been famous for its technical unmatchability. Chris is witty and dynamic, and absolutely bestial on the double bass drum pedals. He has landed in exactly the right place. We saw that last October too, when Testament visited Ljubljana again – RockLine concert review! This guy is no joke.
Testament are seriously nasty. Mean, too. Still. Chuck Billy roars like a crazed grizzly that someone rudely woke up in the middle of winter hibernation. Once again he serves up several faces, and he’s downright astonishing in the opener For The Love Of Pain. The song opens with a picturesque thrash metal riff a la Testament, but that’s practically all you get of classic thrash in it. In that phrase, the squealing transitional tone is perfectly impressive, as Skolnick and Peterson ruthlessly hang on to the tremolo. By the verse the song turns into an experience that has almost more to do with death metal than the commercial fragrance of the new Arch Enemy does, if I may be a little rude. Mostly thanks to the bestial growl of an enraged Chuck Billy. And more. Toward the end of the second minute the song ‘breaks apart’ and shifts into a one-minute black metal blast, which the band keeps returning to until the end of the track, deftly alternating it with the lead thrash metal riff. Later you figure out that this is the ‘black metal’ chorus. Hellish tremolo picking, backed by devastating blast beats, with a sonic density that sounds dark yet somehow symphonic. Especially the closing guitar harmony. A hint? You must know the Dragonlord project.
Infanticide A. I. and, right behind it, Shadow People bring thrash metal back to the album. Slipping in half-tones keeps the phrasing toxic at the highest level. The trading in musicality once again shows off outstanding compositional skill. The ballad Ment To Be brings a surprising detour. The acoustic guitar harmony in the intro flows into something that sounds incredibly old school (think Return To Serenity from “Ritual”; good old Metallica came out with Fade To Black back then, for example), as if it had slipped straight out of the eighties, when thrash metal burst into the open and Testament were right there. Chuck with almost clean vocals, but lured into production darkness and musical melancholy. Even the added symphonic orchestrations bring absolutely no sugar. Nowhere. A fantastic compositional detour that discharges the bristling opening of the album, yet keeps up an exceptional gloom and hopelessness.
High Noon sends the album into a fresh charge. The guitar harmonies sound especially ominous in this song, the riffs like they’re spewing fire in every direction. A track that rolls unstoppably on the wrecking part of the double bass drum pedals. The classic thrash metal dirge Witchhunt keeps up the devastating rhythmic march on the album, and then another detour follows, the song Nature Of The Beast, which is stuffed with old-school metal classicism and even takes the album toward the N.W.O.B.H.M. days. Chuck’s clean singing approach is mildly responsible for that feeling too. The mid-paced Room 117 brings the thrash groove back to the album, and the band develops a likable measure of musicality through angry theater. Chuck stays infectious, especially in Havana Syndrome, where the band pours more oil on the fire, deftly alternating between a furious verse and the classic musicality of the chorus! Contact with the first album era (1989 – 1992) is unavoidable! The closing title track probably boasts the biggest dose of technical complexity. Once again there’s a black metal transitional flourish planted in it, and the song is balanced with classic guitar harmonies from the old eighties days, leaving plenty of room for the well-known thrash metal mockery of the Bay Area horsemen of the apocalypse. An outstanding finish to the album, which automatically makes you hit the ‘repeat’ button on your player.
The production? No debate. Not questionable. It’s top-notch. A beautifully dense, alive and dark sound that stomps along, swallowing the light in front of it and hammering on all cylinders with incredible fieriness. The building blocks of the sonic picture pulse crystal clear throughout the album. The sound is masterfully contrasted and full. The album feels alive, at certain points generously possessed, furious and white-hot. In every respect, Testament remain, despite the giant winding road behind them that might make someone think they’re getting worn out, even in their mature years, still very, very damn and beautifully angry! What the musical substance of the band’s latest achievement offers is just more proof that Testament write material that’s not far from a flattering label: the best metal right now. “Para Bellum” is, put simply, a masterpiece.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. For The Love Of Pain
2. Infanticide A.I.
3. Shadow People
4. Meant to Be
5. High Noon
6. Witch Hunt
7. Nature Of The Beast
8. Room 117
9. Havana Syndrome
10. Para Bellum
Line-up:
Chuck Billy – vocals
Eric Peterson – guitar
Alex Skolnick – guitar
Steve DiGiorgio – bass guitar
Chris Dovas – drums
