Testament have been talking about the potential of releasing a new album in 2019, something singer Chuck Billy didn't shy away from as he projected the follow-up to 2016's Brotherhood of the Snake will be out in the summer.

The frontman spoke with The Metal Voice's Jimmy Kay (video below) at the Hall of Heavy Metal History and offered some loose details surrounding the band's 12th studio album. Testament were on the road with Slayer in the Fall of last year and Billy said, "Right from there we started writing a record right away. The holidays threw a wrench in it, but now after we really started — after the new year — working hard, we should have it out hopefully by — July is our goal. [We'll] hopefully get into the studio by April — that's the goal."

When asked about the musical direction of the upcoming release, the singer said that the scope hadn't been fully realized yet. "Its hard to say because we don't know until the final thing and the songs are always so different," he commented, adding, "Nothing just resembles the last songs that we wrote. I have about eight songs that are totally different."

This far into his career, Billy isn't looking to go through the motions as he explained, "At the point once you start writing over 100 songs you've got to kind of start thinking how do i get more creative and do something different, so it's always a challenge."

As far as what to expect from the lyrical content, there's a strong possibility that the singer returns to the wellspring of aliens. "I'm still hooked on aliens," he exclaimed. "Brotherhood of the Snake was all about aliens and creating mankind and mining the Earth. I'm still fascinated about that and a lot of stuff and even beyond that. Especially now watching what's going on with Mars and trying to terraform Mars and make it a sustainable planet like Earth. There's a lot going on out there beyond this planet which fascinates me. There's always a story or always something I can make up," he concluded.

When pressed about writing a concept album, Billy didn't rule it out, but stressed that the band would really need to map something out and find the right concept and title if they ever decided to pursue that challenge.

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