Riffology Score: 85/100
Para Bellum is the sound of a forty-year-old Bay Area thrash band genuinely interested in what thrash could be in 2025 rather than what it was in 1987, dragging blackened death-metal blasts, a string-led ballad and a touch of NWOBHM melody into the same fifty minutes without losing the bite that made Testament Testament.
Album Details and Background
Para Bellum is Testament's fourteenth studio album, released on 10 October 2025 by Nuclear Blast and recorded across four studios between May and December 2024. Chuck Billy and Eric Peterson are credited as producers, with Juan Urteaga co-producing and engineering, Jens Bogren mixing and Tony Lindgren mastering. Cellist Dave Eggar handles the orchestration on "Meant to Be". Sleeve art is by Eliran Kantor.
The headline change in the camp is the drum stool. Gene Hoglan departed in January 2022; Dave Lombardo briefly rejoined for The Bay Strikes Back tour but sat out the recording cycle; former Seven Spires drummer Chris Dovas was confirmed as the permanent member in April 2023 and makes his studio debut here. Para Bellum lands five years after Titans of Creation and is the first Testament record since 1997's Demonic not to involve Andy Sneap in production.
Album Facts
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Artist | Testament |
| Album | Para Bellum (fourteenth studio album) |
| Release date | 10 October 2025 |
| Label | Nuclear Blast |
| Producers | Chuck Billy and Eric Peterson; Juan Urteaga (co-production, recording) |
| Mixer / mastering | Jens Bogren (mix); Tony Lindgren (master) |
| Studios | Trident, Dragon Lair, Skol Productions, Classic Recording Bristol |
| Genre | Thrash metal with blackened death-metal and orchestral elements |
| Track count | 10 |
| Total runtime | 50 minutes 24 seconds |
| Lead single | "Infanticide A.I." (21 August 2025); follow-up "Shadow People" (12 September 2025) |
| Notable chart peaks | UK Rock & Metal 1, German Rock & Metal 2, Swedish Hard Rock 2, US Top Album Sales 9, German Albums 10, UK Albums Sales 12 |
| Riffology Score | 85/100 |
Album Analysis
Opener "For the Love of Pain" sets out the stall immediately: a fast, furious thrash riff smashed through with second-wave-black-metal blast sections that border on Peterson's Dragonlord side-project territory. Dovas's playing is the first thing to register: faster, more precise and more willing to drop into a blast beat than anything a Testament record has previously asked of its drummer. Lead single "Infanticide A.I." follows the same template and pushes harder still, a sub-three-and-a-half-minute rager built on a riff that occasionally borders on grindcore, with Chuck Billy alternating thrash bark, blackened scream and clean melody in the chorus.
"Shadow People" is the album's groove centrepiece, leaning into atmosphere and one of Billy's most memorable hooks. "Meant to Be" is the curveball: a seven-and-a-half-minute ballad, co-written by Peterson and Skolnick, built on Dave Eggar's string arrangement and Billy's cleanest, most exposed vocal of the cycle. It's the moment the album takes its biggest swing outside the thrash sandbox; some listeners will hear it as a brave structural pause, others as a momentum killer after three blistering openers.
The back half is where the late-career Testament instincts win. "Room 117" locks into a slick mid-tempo strut that recalls Practice What You Preach. "Havana Syndrome" finds the sweet spot between vintage Testament riffing and a distinct NWOBHM lead-guitar bend. The title track closes on a sprawling, overstuffed seven-minute thrash-meets-classical workout ending on a clean acoustic outro that feels earned rather than tacked on. The weak spots are "Nature of the Beast", which reads more like a Saxon homage than a Testament song, and "High Noon", whose gunslinger-and-showdown lyric is the cheesiest moment on the record.
"Their fourteenth studio effort positively reeks of a desire to push thrash forward, to make it darker and more imaginative, and to dismantle any and all restrictions on what the genre can be. Para Bellum is a fucking monster."
Dom Lawson, Blabbermouth.net, October 2025 (9/10)
Tracklist
- For the Love of Pain (5:35)
- Infanticide A.I. (3:27)
- Shadow People (5:45)
- Meant to Be (7:33)
- High Noon (3:52)
- Witch Hunt (4:16)
- Nature of the Beast (4:28)
- Room 117 (4:18)
- Havana Syndrome (4:40)
- Para Bellum (6:30)
Tour and Conclusion
Testament are taking Para Bellum on the road with a large European package tour alongside Obituary, Destruction and Nervosa into 2026, with a confirmed Bloodstock Open Air slot to follow in summer 2026.
Critical consensus on Para Bellum has been unusually warm: Blabbermouth 9/10, Brave Words 8.5, Sputnik and KNAC both four stars, Metal Storm 8/10, and Loudwire naming it the publication's best metal album of 2025. Angry Metal Guy's 3.0/5 is the dissent, praising the late-album run while flagging the same mid-record drag ("Nature of the Beast", "High Noon") that the analysis above lands on. The Riffology Score of 85 reflects exactly that read: a brave, mostly-winning addition to a catalogue that did not have to take any of these risks, dragged down a few points by two awkward tracks in the middle. If The Formation of Damnation or Titans of Creation still get spins, Para Bellum is essential; if late-period Testament has lost you, this is the one to come back for.
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