Testament’s ‘Para Bellum’ Is Among The Best Of 2025’s Best New Hard Rock, Metal Albums

By: Philip Sayblack

​For those who might have not heard or read already, Testament announced recently, it will launch a new tour this coming spring in the form of the “Thrash of the Titans Tour.”  Set to kickoff March 14 in Portland, OR and run through Apr. 10 in Berkeley, CA, the 20-date tour is in support of the band’s latest album, Para Bellum.  Released Oct. 10 through Nuclear Blast Records (which also released the band’s previous four albums), the 10-song record is easily one of the best of this year’s new hard rock and metal albums.  This has already been proven through the trio of singles that the album has produced so far – ‘Infanticide A.I.,’ ‘Shadow People,’ and ‘High Noon.’  Those songs are just a snapshot of what makes Para Bellum such an impressive new record.  The album offers plenty of other songs that do just as well to display the album’s power.  Just one of those other notable entries comes late in the 50-minute record in the form of ‘Room 117.’  The album’s title track,’ which closes out the record, is another welcome to the presentation, as is ‘Witch Hunt.’  All three songs noted here collectively do just as much to exhibit what makes Para Bellum a success.  When that trio of songs is considered alongside the already released singles, and that whole with the remainder of the album’s entries, the whole therein makes Para Bellum in whole one more of this year’s best new hard rock and metal albums.
Para Bellum, the latest full-length studio recording from Testament, is a welcome new offering from the band that holds its own against this year’s massively overcrowded field of notable new hard rock and metal albums.  The trio of singles that the record has already produced easily support said statement.  They are just a snapshot of what makes this album a success.  There are plenty of other songs that show that success just as much.  ‘Room 117,’ which is included in the album’s second half, is just one of those other songs that shows the album’s strength.  The song stands out in part through its musical arrangement, which is a full throttle trash metal composition that holds its own against anything that the band’s contemporaries have churned out this year and even in recent memory.  Something really interesting here is front man Chuck Billy’s vocal delivery here.  He sounds like Megadeth front man/founder Dave Mustaine interestingly enough.  All that considered, the musical arrangement featured in this song makes for its own share of engagement and entertainment.
The lyrical content featured alongside that musical content adds to the interest as it seems to hint at a person laying on their deathbed in a hospital, seeing all of the spirits around them as their final minutes pass.  This is inferred as Billy sings, “Surrounded by insanity/screams/They go unheard/There’s no humanity/Thoughts of life/Seem so absurd/You’re praying for a painless death/the madness does not cease/Medication majesty/To bring me some relief/Machines help you breathe/You’re trapped inside a dream/You will never leave Room 116.  Odds are the room number is random, but the picture painted is all too familiar.  It is that of someone left to lay there in that hospital bed, tied to those machines, wanting the pain medication.  He continues the rich visual as he sings in the song’s second verse, “Traumatized by memories/Where am I today/Eyes alight/I never sleep/Just keep on twisting in this grave/Searching for the sanctity/My dignity’s destroyed/There’s no easing of the pain/When you’re entering the void.”  From there the person laying in that bed talks about feeling “lonely” and “helpless” before mentioning hearing “a voice call/Hallucinations.”  This goes right in line with what so many stories have said of people having near death and final moments.  The picture painted here is so vivid.  The musical arrangement fits with the range of emotions felt by the person laying in that hospital bed.  It would have been just as easy to have had the arrangement been more brooding, but what is presented here works just as well.  To that end, this song is another prime example of how much Para Bellum has to offer audiences.
One more song that serves to show the album’s strength comes in the form of the record’s title track.  Also serving as the album’s closer, the arrangement here clocks in at just over six-and-a-half minutes.  As is the case with ‘Room 117’ listeners get in ‘Para Bellum’ another solid thrash composition.  Its heavy, chugging opening bars quickly give way to the full on presentation that interestingly becomes increasingly intense as the song progresses, or at least seems to do so.  Billy stated in multiple interviews that the title of this album is Latin, for “Prepare for War.”  It makes sense in the case of this song, too.  This as the song here points at a discussion on the internal conflict within this country.  This as Billy sings, “Eyes of a serpent/Stare at a venomous past/Spitting their lies/While they keep on the course of the path/Anguish and pain/Broadcasting hatred unclear/Cloak of deception/Hides voices of fear/Minions/They gather/Nothing is holding them back/Climbing the walls/For which they were sent to attack/Breaking the lines/Smashing the door/Lock the gates/A radical mob/Imposing their will and their hate/Unknowing/Forgoing/What does our future hold/Controlling/Disowning/Our rights cannot be sold/People shout/You will never keep us out.”  If ever there was a clear depiction of the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection by Donald Trump’s minions, this is it.  Billy closes the whole by asking “What are you fighting for?”  People have asked that question ever since his minions stormed the United States Capitol all those years ago.  They were clearly brainwashed.  Ever since that day, it seems like America has been preparing for war, even more so now than then.  It is scary.  Americans not brainwashed by Donald Trump know what we are fighting for.  The other side however, does not seem to know or care.  To that end, this song is, musically and lyrically, a powerful final statement from this album and yet another example of how much the record has to offer audiences.
Yet one more example of the album’s strength comes in the form of ‘Witch Hunt.’  This song has nothing to do with Trump (despite how much he loves to use the phrase).  Rather, it comes across as a commentary on how humans have conducted so many real/figurative witch hunts ever since those that blemished the history of Salem and the Puritans.  This is inferred as Billy sings, “So redundant/And viciously obscene/How the rhetoric has come into the light/All involved/To hold accountability/For all of those/Who have been a disgrace/The vile content/That roams across the universe/But never seems to play by the rules/Interrogation/falsely accused/This committee is all made up of fools.”  That last line seems to point to the people behind Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s witch hunt against people accused of being communists during the Cold War.  Billy adds to that seeming discussion in the chorus, singing, “Execution/Their authority/Investigating all those dirty deeds/Insinuating/Stealing liberties/Again and again.”  Those in power think it is their right, their duty to “execute” those they deem guilty.  It is something we have seen those in power – those evil people in power – do time and again throughout America’s history.  It plays further into the album’s title, as it reminds us we must prepare for war even as it pertains to fighting such people in power.    We see Republicans in Congress doing all of this to this day. 
Billy further adds in the song’s second verse “Subjugation/And no end in sight/As it turns into a one-sided fight/The moral compass/The ethics involved/Seems to be directed/Like a firing squad.”  Again, we are seeing this so much today.  One need just pick up a newspaper or watch the news and it becomes fully visible.  We need to prepare for the war that is here in this vein, too.  To that end, this song just in its lyrical content, proves in itself what makes this album so strong. The intense, almost Slayer-esque approach that the band took to the song’s arrangement furthers the anger meant to be displayed in the lyrics.  The whole makes ‘Witch Hunt’ such a strong addition to the album in its own right.  When this song in whole is considered alongside the other songs examined here and that group along with the album’s singles and the rest of its entries, the whole makes Para Bellum one of the best of this year’s new hard rock and metal albums.
Para Bellum, the latest album from Testament, is a powerful new offering from the veteran thrash metal act.  From its beginning to its end, its collective content is sure to engage and audiences.  The singles that the record has already produced have made that clear.  The songs examined here do much the same as do the rest of the album’s entries.  The whole makes Para Bellum a presentation that is easily one more of the best of this year’s new hard rock and metal albums.
Para Bellum is available now. More information on the album is available along with all of Testament’s latest news (including new of its forthcoming tour) at:
Website: http://www.testamentlegions.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/testamentlegions
Twitter: http://twitter.com/testament