Testament are back, and they’re pissed.
The iconic Bay Area outfit have unveiled plans to put out their fourteenth studio full-length, titled Para Bellum, and they’re previewing the platter with a scathing, tech-and-society-critical thrasher called “Infanticide A.I.”
Testament take on the rise of the machines with hyper-blasted zeal and terror-trilled guitar aggression from Alek Skonick and Eric Peterson. Chuck Billy, meanwhile, delivers a seething vocal performance that has him decrying “computer human replication,” a sinister “transmutation of copyright,” and the fact that we may already be a bunch of deep fakes (“The future’s destined to replace the soul / Dire warning, we have lost control”).
You can sample the speedy missive via a new music video combining performance footage with guns-blazing poker games, science experiments gone awry and lots of screen-futzing digital effects.
As for Para Bellum, the album was described in an official Testament Instagram post “as both a battle cry and an observation of humanity’s uneasy alliance with its own creations.” The tech-inspired record apparently reflects “the modern chaos through music that’s urgent, sharp, and unflinchingly human.”
Para Bellum is out October 10th via Nuclear Blast. It’s the band’s first full-length release since 2020’s Titans of Creation, and it can be pre-ordered here.