2016 has been a statement year for classic thrash metal greats. Megadeth, Anthrax, Death Angel, and Flotsam & Jetsam have filled our top 10. In at the number 2 spot is Testament’s The Brotherhood Of The Snake. Blending a more aggressive approach taken from their mid-‘90s albums, The Brotherhood is a deadly strike of thrash with vocalist Chuck Billy tossing more death-influenced vocals to give the venomous tracks a poisonous bite. “The Pale King” and “Neptune’s Spear” stand out as top tier tracks from the album and showcase Testament at their best.

Guitarist Eric Peterson told BraveWords how he was responsible for basically all the music found on the record:

“There’s a couple little riffs I gave Alex (Skolnick, guitarist) credit for, a couple chord progressions. But 99.5% yeah. I demoed eight songs. There’s two that didn’t make it on the record, and I pulled one out of my ass; that was ‘Seven Seals’ because one of them didn’t work, they said it sounded like Dio too much. It’s a killer song, I’m going to use it at some point; but it was too soon for it. I had the riff for ‘Seven Seals’ and it changed; that song has been edited so many times to get it to where it’s at now. Basically that’s what you do when you rehearse as a band. You try making a section longer or adding something; luckily we had all the parts. But the rest of them, the guys definitely heard what was going on, but we didn’t get to rehearse it as a band though. Gene (Hoglan, drummer) came in and he knew – I didn’t have to sit down and teach him stuff. He had a demo of everything that was going to happen, except for ‘Seven Seals’. It was a crazy record to make, but it came out great. We’re all pretty proud of it.”

Peterson also discussed the return of bassist of Steve DiGiorgio, who was with the band from 1998-2004:

“Personally, it’s awesome cause Steve’s my buddy. He’s the one guy in the band I click with, we do stuff together. Musician-wise, it’s really killer. I would say he’s more of a standout bass player, as opposed to a low key bass player – which gets competitive with the guitars, but we keep it in check and the results are on the new record.”

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Scribe Jason Deaville stated in his review:

“The guys, never afraid to tackle new topics and ideas, reached deep into the galactic blackness and have hit us all with a bit of a concept album - one that explores the mythical Sumerian race that is referenced in the title (a connection between aliens and religion that spans the past 6,000 years of human history). If the Ancient Aliens theme is too much for ya, well, the guys bring shit crashing right back down to earth with the second half of the album, where songs such as ‘Black Jack’ and ‘Canna Business’ deal with every day human travails such as gambling/sin city and the ongoing struggles of cannabis and the fight for legalization. Suffice it to say, Brotherhood Of The Snake is a deeply poignant record that will likely hit home with both the conspiracy theorists and the more chilled, don't-give-a-fuck fans.”

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