In a way, Testament is like The Small Faces to Metallica’s Beatles and Slayer’s Rolling Stones: a band as virtuosic, productive, and creatively astute as their deified peers, but hamstrung by bad business breaks. Another factor is the absence of an outspoken know-it-all (Slayer, Metallica), a gimmicky mascot (Anthrax), or a Mustaine-esque diva (duh) to which Testament’s marketing efforts could be anchored. Aside from singer Chuck Billy’s serious illness a decade ago, the Testament story’s most noteworthy turns include little more than the defection of a jazz-crazy guitarist and a dickish but minor betrayal by metal’s most corpulent drummer.

Even if a hypothetical Testament: Behind The Music would clock in at about six minutes, an All-Star Tribute To Testament concert event could stretch across days to cover just the highlights of their dudless catalogue. (My personal best-of runs 175 minutes. Yeah baby.) And while the band is enjoying what guitarist Eric Peterson calls “a second wind” since the return of uber-guitarist Alex Skolnick and bassist Greg Peterson for the magnificent 2008 outing The Formation of Damnation, Testament remains supplicant to sexier tourmates Slayer and Megadeth in the opening slot on this summer’s rescheduled American Carnage Tour. That seems fine by the surprisingly affable (and occasionally merry) Chuck Billy, who spoke exclusively to MetalSucks about getting hammered in Europe, how Dave Lombardo’s enabled the awesomeness of The Gathering, the quest to control their back catalogue, and their exciting-as-fuck new setlist. Emphasis on “new.”

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As we mentioned earlier today, next Thursday we’ll run the MS staffs’ various year end lists. Of course, that means that the MS staff has to start turning them in now. And as we’ve begun the editing process, we’ve been reassured of what we already knew: opinions are like assholes. Everybody’s got one. But what’s more fun than smoking weed, listening to good music, and engaging in intellectual (or semi-intellectual) debate with good friends? For our money, nothing. That’s why we started MetalSucks in the first place!

Here were some sources of intellectual debate this week:

• We looked at a series of dreadful demos, the last of which was epic (and not dreadful at all).
• We spoke with Eric Peterson of Testament and Robb Flynn of Machine Head.
• Devin Townsend got deep.
• Marduk’s Mortuus body-slammed a would-be hugging fan.
• Mastodon are officially on the radar of mainstream publications like Time.
• We mourned the loss of Dimebag Darrell 5 years ago this week.
• We proclaimed Hate Eternal and System of a Down underappreciated.

Now we challenge you to start guessing which albums which MS writers will name as their favorites. Anyone who guesses correctly wins the knowledge that they probably read this site way too much when they should be working, or fucking, or doing almost anything else.

And then on Thursday we’ll unveil all the lists.

-Vince & Axl

Metal fans, let’s take a collective moment to consider ourselves blessed with some big Peters. Peters who will take you firmly from both sides of the mixing board with confidence and expertise. Sweaty, bulging-veined Peters whose live shows leave willing multitudes spent, sated, slack – and more than a bit bruised. These Peters, thanks to generous endowments of talent, stand fully erect as superstars in real metal. Each of metal’s hugest Peters share a rock hard work ethic, hardly pausing for rest between releases captured on tape and performances in the flesh, after which they simply move on to violate again in another city.

For the second installment of MetalSucks’ Metal’s Biggest Peters, I phoned Testament’s Eric Peterson, for whom I had no fewer than ten-thousand questions. But Peterson is busy building the next classic Testament record and preparing for the Slayer/Megadeth-headlined American Carnage tour – or, simply, the Slaygadethstament Tour – so I’d have to wait for another day to press him about producers Tony Platt and GGGarth Richardson; nor would we discuss Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo’s career performance on The Gathering, the record that re-launched Testament as a metal juggernaut; neither was there an opportunity to probe Peterson’s feelings on the infiltration of Testament by an unapologetic jazz devotee in godly guitarist Alex Skolnick; and I’d have to refrain from following-up on his passing mentions of good new music and jerkface Dave Mustaine. Still, the genial and passionate Peterson opened up about the diplomacy required to lead a metal band, Testament’s surprising new setlist, the potential for blastbeats on the follow-up to 2008’s triumphant The Formation of Damnation, and his surefire plan to improve the disaster movie 2012.

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