In a bit of metal business news, thrash titans Testament announced they’ve found a new home for their entire discography by signing up with Nuclear Blast Records for the foreseeable future. The news came just a couple days after we learned the band has a few “killer” tunes already done for the next album and a week after we announced them as one of the headliners for the inaugural Metal Injection Festival.
According to the record label, the signing took place right before Testament took the stage at Hellfest over the weekend. Thanks to the acquisition, both The Legacy and The New Order is now available on all popular digital streaming platforms.
Testament guitarist Eric Peterson said the band had recently regained ownership of some of their previous albums with Atlantic Records and while considering their current business relationship with Nuclear Blast, decided to bring those albums under that banner.
“We signed with NB back in 2008 and it’d been a perfect fit for us ever since then. Incidentally, our older catalog with Atlantic Records – The Legacy, The New Order, Practice What You Preach, Souls of Black, The Ritual, and Low – have returned to us and we feel it’s a great new start to have NB Release these albums again with some new unreleased artwork, photos, etc. Also, we will be signing a new three-album deal with them! So the future for Metal is looking very, very bright! Cheers!”
In addition to their bringing those albums to Nuclear Blast, the band announced that they were committing to the label for at least the next three albums. Nuclear Blast U.S. Label Manager Tommy Jones described the turn of events as “completing a full circle for me.”
“One of my favorite guitars as a kid was my dark red Ibanez Saber (540S) with the wizard neck. I purchased that guitar to sound like Alex Skolnick who played that model and color back in the day. So all these years later to be signing those OG, genre-defining TESTAMENT albums that were such an early influence like The New Order, Practice What You Preach, and Souls of Black, as well as new TESTAMENT albums to Nuclear Blast, is completing a full circle for me. Truly an ‘If the 15-year-old me could see this’ type of moment. It’s time to continue ‘The Legacy’ with Nuclear Blast!”