Brotherhood of the Snake also marks Testament's fifth collaboration with Andy Sneap,[2][3] who had mixed and engineered all of their albums since The Gathering (1999) and produced Dark Roots of Earth (2012).

[8] 2013 also saw the release of a live DVD/double album from Testament Dark Roots of Thrash, which documents the band's sold-out headlining performance at the Paramount in Huntington, New York in February 2013.

"[10] However, these plans fell through, when it was announced in January 2014 that bassist Greg Christian had left Testament for the second time,[11] citing differences with the band and money disputes as the reasons.

[11] Asked in an April 2015 interview about Testament's plans to begin recording a new album, Peterson said that his "main goal" was to "get home [from tour] in June, finish it up and get in the studio by September.

[16] In May 2016, Billy confirmed the title of Testament's eleventh album to be The Brotherhood of the Snake, which at the time had been recorded, and he hoped for it to be completed before their UK tour in June 2016.

[19] On August 4, 2016, Testament began an eight-day countdown to the release of the artwork for Brotherhood of the Snake,[20][21] and the album's track listing was revealed later that month.

AllMusic writer Thom Jurek gave the album three-and-a-half out of five stars, and states that it "offers an excellent sonic portrait of Testament doing what they do best -- aggressive, riff-heavy, in-your-face thrash.