Testament guitarist and main songwriter Eric Peterson's predilection for black metal is no secret—given the three records he's released with his symphonic black metal band Dragonlord (the latest with saldy-now-ex-Trivium drummer Alex Bent in tow). Before now, his black and thrash metal streams have remained largely uncrossed, save for Peterson's occasional screeched backing vocals showing up a couple of times on previous album Titans of Creation (2020), on tracks like "Night of the Witch" and "Ishtar's Gate". So it came with some shock when "For the Love of Pain"—the opening track of their new album Para Bellum—ceased its otherwise fairly conventional thrash assault around the two-minute mark and dived headfirst into the blackened tremolo riffing that had been bubbling beneath its surface for the next sixty-seconds. I was even more surprised when they revived the blackened textures, along with Peterson's rhaspy croaks, for the final minute-and-a-half, and further taken aback when the following two tracks, and elad-singles, "Infantacide A.I." and "Shaddow People" pulled partook of similarly blackened departures (around 1:38 and 2:00 respectively, both below). Is this Testement's black metal album?
The answer is both yes and no. The blackened influence and interlopes are definitely more present here than they ever have been on any of their previous twelve records, but are also only really consistent across these three, opening tracks. Front-loading the blackened elements like this, along with using them to promote the record, gives the black metal sections a lot more prominence than they would have, had they just been buried or otherwise inconsistently interjected throughout the album, then they may have remained mere curiosities rather than a definitive and ultimately unfulfilled statement(s). Given how persistent and fresh sounding they are during Para Bellum's early moments, it is with some disappointment that they more or less disappear after this opening salvo, leaving the rest of the album as an incredibly high quality thrash metal release, but also a fairly conventional one, which is probably what anyone would have expected at this point.
A standard Testament album is still head and shoulders above most thrash metal records though, especially coming from a band of their vintage. Indeed, a lot of Para Bellum draws direct comparison to the thrash legends of yore and severely shows them up in the process. "Witch Hunt" is another strong offering that starts out with some brief blackened riffing, before blasting off into a more deathened direction and ends with a very ends with very Metallica-style stomp riff with a very Kirk Hammett-esque wah -solo over the top of it. The closing title-track has some similar blackened riffing to it again and starts off sounding sounding like it’s going to be an instrumental number, before Chuck Billy's gruff vocals kick in and the band rage towards an acoustic outro that invokes the beginning of Metallica's "Fight Fire with Fire". Para Bellum also features the first straight-up ballad track Testament have attempted in a while, in the form of "Meant to Be", which might nit reach the lofty heights of "The Legacy", but nevertheless ends in a very Metallica-sounding harmonic riff and solo section that absolutely owns. The plodding main riff and vocal pattern on "Shadow People" also sounds like Metallica's "Moth to Flame", and is the only time where Testament perhaps come up short in the imagined competition, by going up against what is probably the best Metallica song of the twenty-first century, and even then it's pretty close.
Later in the record, "Nature of the Beast" sounds a lot like Megadeth, or perhaps Mustaine-era Metallica with its very "Hit the Lights"-sounding riff, while being markedly better than anything that band have done since Endgame (2009)—or at least Dystopia (2016), which is still almost a decade behind us at this point—and will likely be better than anything they can deliver on their forthcoming final album. "Room 17" continues the Megadeth comparisons by being both sonically and geographically next door to "Hanger 18", before "Havana Syndrome" brings in some tasty Iron Maiden-style guitar melodies. "High noon" is also sure to be a live standout, with its opening shotgun-cocking catch-cry and a stomping groove metal riff that suggests its no coincidence that Chuck Billy participated in what might just be the best Lamb of God song of the last decade. The production, again handled by Juan Urteaga—who's been working with Testament since Dark Roots of Earth, along with other thrash titans like Machine Head and Exodus—is fantastic, as usual, as is the mixing from first-time collaborator Jens Bogren. Moreover, while new drummer Chris Dovas (Seven Spires) might not be Gene Hoglan or Dave Lombardo, he also may as well be, and his performance here is certainly more inspiring than that new Dark Angel album or whatever Lombardo's been working on lately.
Unfortunately, there is one big stinking fly in Para Bellum's ointment that I'm sick of talking (and you're probably sick of reading) about, but which really must be addressed, and that's the use of AI in the album's marketing material. This almost wouldn't be worth bringing up (which is a sad statement in and of itself), if it's its lead-single's direct dencouncing of the "Transmutation of all copyrights, Image processed and computerized, Generated to destroy us all" and promo copy's proclamations about how it's Eliran Kantor-painted artwork is "a visual metaphor for blind belief and self-destruction—created, notably, by hand—in an era flooded by AI-generated imagery" weren't so severely undermined by the obvious and unnecessary use of AI in the video for "Shadow People" (above), credited to Freakshot Films. It seems, regrettably, that AI artwork is here to stay, but it raise a question I find myself asking a lot these days: "y tho?" Does anybody actually watch these things? Who is this even for? There are some great music videos out there, but does anyone actually sit there and watch or even think about the images in these kinds of generic image-slop versions? With contemporary contenders for the current thrash metal throne Kreator simultaneously putting out obviously plagiarised AI crap like this, one has to wonder: What's wrong with just a straight-up live performance video?
Marketing gripes aside, Para Bellum itself absolutely wipes the floor with anything the Big Four or any other (North) American thrash acts of their era have put out for at least a decade or so. As Testament albums go, though, it's a fairly unremarkable affair, save for its occasional blackened digressions. This is even more especially when compared to Titans of Creation, which served as a masterful culmination of everywhere they'd been throughout their lofty career. Para Bellum, on the other hand, sits alongside other modern albums like Brotherhood of the Snake (2016) and Dark Roots of Earth (2012)—great thrash metal albums, but only pretty good Testament ones. It was kind of disappointing to see Testament pedaling another "legacy" tour and remasters again last year, given the fine form they've been in recently, they've otherwise never really been a band to rest on their well-deserved laurels—and as the better, blackened parts of Para Bellum show, they're at their best when they really go for it.