TESTAMENT

Thrash Will Never Die

We've been waitin' for theat moment for nine bloody long years. Nervously biting our nails we believed that in the end we'll have the luck to listen to the most anticipated metal album of all time. However the high expectations in confrontation with reality could result a very painful disappointment, we knew that TESTAMENT will not disappoint the legions of the true believers. It is now clear that "The Formation of Damnation" is certainly not "The Gathering pt. II. " But when you listen to that album for a few times you will have no doubts who sits on the thrash metal throne. TESTAMENT is back and takes no prisoners.

-Eric. How does it feel when you realize that no-one will ask about the date of the release date of "The Gathering"'s successor. I guess it was the most frequently asked question in last few years?
Ha-ha ... Yeah ... .. This is definitely a good situation to finally have this album in my hand. We've heard that question so many times. But I really didn't want to people to stop asking. Such a situation would mean that no-one is waiting for this CD. But now the waiting is over. I think that "The Formation of Damnation" is an album, which without any doubts will fulfill the expectations. It seems to me that we developed our own style. We used the elements from older times, which are connected with those taken from recent albums. These references to the past are most evident in the way Chuck is singing. He often uses far higher registers. And there are more clean vocals.

-I agree with you. The new album is almost perfect mixture of the best of old and new TESTAMENT. Although at the beginning, I had a mixed feelings because you didn't record the second part of the masterpiece released in 1999. And "TFoD" is definitely not "The Gathering pt. II". But then I realised that you didn'T choose the way which seemed to be the most simple one. Didn't you think about writing a song that would even stronger underline the connections with glorious 80's. I think about the song that would become a new element in the history written by such works as "The Ballad", "The Legacy" and "Return To Serenity"?
In fact, we have written a ballad. It is a beautiful song, but we weren;t able to finish it before recordings. I hope that this song appear on our next album. This song really is already composed, but there was not enough time to write lyrics and vocal lines. We decided to wait and leave it for the future.

-It's great to hear that you've already have some stuff for another album. Maybe we won't be forced to wait for the next album so long?
- This time it will be only eight years. I was joking. Certainly we'll go into the studio much faster.

-You've said about development in your music. When I listen to such a riffs like those from "Dangers of the Faithless" I must say that you've put more progressive elements in your music. They differ from the typical thrash stuff. Are those elements connected with Alex's return and his musical fascinationions?
Alex has written the whole "FEAR" song and also conributed to "Dangers ..". All other compositions on the album were written by me. But you're right there are less typical rhythms in that song. I think that it is a good situation in which two composers work on the album. We wanted to have songs on the disc, which differ from each other, so the record is much better balanced.

-Without any doubts Mr. Skolnick's guitar solos shine really bright on that album. They're simply fantastic. The one from "The Evil Has Landed" is simply a fucking world championship. I think that you'll share my opinion that return of such a virtuoso - with the whole respect for Mr. Smyth and Murphy - reinforced the power of your guitar attack?
Sure. It's fantastic that we have Alex back. But this time there's one more thing that I'm really happy about. I've play half solos on the disc. It was quite difficult to convince the other guys. They were rather skeptical. And consider me as rhythm guitarist. They thought that playing solos is Alex's thing. They said: You should better take care of rhythm parts. So I answered: Hey! I am a guitarist, too. He .. he .. This time, you can hear my solos for example in: "More Than Meets The Eye" where each of us played a solo - the one played by me appears as the second. The same is with the title track. My solo comes first, followed by the one played by Alex. We are playing together also in "Killing Season". I think that now everything works better. Maybe it is a matter of maturity. The tracks are more interesting, because it is better to hear two good solos than one.

-You've mentioned the tite track which is probably one of the most extreme compositions in your career. Middle part reminds me a little "Demonic" era. Was it difficult to convince the lover of jazz to play such cruel riffs?
Definitely not. Alex was very excited when I showed him those riffs. He said only: Wow. This is really heavy. We have a lot of joy when we were playing together this song.