Titans of Creation

Stumbles happen to virtually everyone - the condition is as obvious as the effectiveness of most modern coaching. However, it's worse when we are talking about well-known names, after whom high expectations arise automatically and the musical CV of such veterans contains groundbreaking albums. Unfortunately, despite the initial good run since Testament's comeback, a rather similar issue could unfortunately be said about their "Brotherhood Of The Snake" - an album distinguished by an even more killing, star line-up, top-shelf production and pompous promotion, and which in practice was very mediocre, lacked power and was not very memorable. What's worse, the next in line from 2020, "Titans Of Creation", does not erase these impressions at all. The twelfth album of these Americans is even worse than its predecessor.

In fact, it wouldn't be too much of an exaggeration to simply paste over most of the allegations from my "Brotherhood..." review and only add that the band used its trademarks in an even less sophisticated way. "Titans Of Creation" is an exemplary example of the biggest problems that a large number of (thrash) metal releases under the Nuclear Blast banner suffer from, and - in general - an album that seriously lacks an idea for reconciling the stronger fragments with the polished ones. So again, we are talking of a very generic look at thrash (with one small exception - more on that in a moment), but "Titans..." is in a much worse situation than its predecessor, because it has more boredom on it (due to which the songs can reach 5-6 minutes senselessly), unnecessarily adds references to the melodiousness of "Practice What You Preach" and "The Ritual" and dulls the lively parts with numerous, terribly senile vocals by Chuck Billy. Only DiGiorgio's bass stands out in a positive way, with his instrument gaining a bit more space in the mix, although he still didn't perform any miracles here.

Well, looks good here speed of "Code Of Hammurabi", the beginning of "City Of Angels" (although then the whole thing falls apart), the paradoxical lightness of "Dream Deceiver" (although there is no way to compare to older songs of this type) and the surprisingly successful blackened (!) "Curse Of Osiris". The rest, yes, can pass through the player, but it really doesn't leave much behind in your mind. "Catacombs" is also surprising - a completely unnecessary outro, using the same riff as in "Legions (In Hiding)" from the "Low" album. On the other hand, this is a general complaint about this album - "Titans Of Creation" should be definitely shorter and more condensed.

It's a pity that such words have to be addressed to such thrash veterans as Testament. "Titans Of Creation" is an album from which pleasure is derived quite temporarily and any attempts to analyze it in more detail reveal the brutal truth - as a release devoid of decent ideas for riffs, too user-friendly, not very diverse and with wasted potential of such talented musicians. This is even more surprising when you consider that on their 2008 and 2012 lps, the imitative approach worked without such ambivalent feelings.

Originally on A bit of subjectivism...in metal