THE BEAST

Earlier this month, TESTAMENT drummer Gene Hoglan spoke to the "Talk Toomey" podcast about the progress of the recording sessions for the follow-up to the band's 2016 album "Brotherhood Of The Snake" . He said (hear audio below): "I know the band was shooting for completing the album by June 12th. I know that they had that as a pretty hard target for completion of all the tracks. And then I don't know what [producer] Andy Sneap is up to — I think Andy 's probably out on the road with JUDAS PRIEST [as the band's touring guitarist] — but I understand Andy will be mixing it. We tracked with Juan Urteaga , like we have the past couple of things. And Juan 's great to work with. People might know him from the MACHINE HEAD albums that he's done. And he's done a lot of tracking for TESTAMENT in the past, as well as Ted Nugent , NIGHT RANGER — God, you name it. Juan 's awesome to work with. I love tracking with Juan . He's a cool guy, super positive, and that's always fun."

As for when fans should expect to see the new TESTAMENT album released, Gene said: "I am not the person to be making the official statement, but I believe the band wants to get the album out in 2019, I think. And in order to do so, it had to be completed by the middle of June, so if gets mixed, whenever it's mixed and pressed and whatnot, so I would imagine TESTAMENT is shooting for a 2019 release. And I would also imagine if that didn't happen, then early 2020."

Hoglan previously told Agoraphobic News that TESTAMENT 's upcoming album is shaping up to "a killer, kick-ass" record. Everybody's gonna enjoy it," he said. " TESTAMENT has a good grasp on what TESTAMENT does, so it's gonna be just another kick-ass TESTAMENT record. Totally."

Guitarist Eric Peterson said in an interview with Guitar World that he hoped TESTAMENT 's next album would be a more collaborative effort than "Brotherhood Of The Snake" , which saw him writing all the music in about three months and then e-mailing the songs to his bandmates.

For his part, guitarist Alex Skolnick told Heavy New York that TESTAMENT 's new studio album will not necessarily sound like a direct follow-up to "Brotherhood Of The Snake" .

"I think anytime we make a record, we don't think about the last record," he said. "That's done. Actually, the last thing we wanna be influenced by is the previous record. And I think it's pretty safe to say there's never been two records in a row where they're really that much alike. We don't have a 'period.' Sometimes bands release a pair or a series of records where there's a big similarity. We've never done that. So I think it's gonna be starting fresh. And we'll see where it goes… It's not pre-planned."

Last September, singer Chuck Billy told Inquisitr that TESTAMENT '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."

"Brotherhood Of The Snake" was recorded under the watchful eyes of Urteaga , Peterson and Billy and was mixed and mastered by Sneap .