Titans of Creation

There were multiple announcements when this record would release, the closest being to 2018. Maybe ideas weren’t intact and too much touring dates including Slayer‘s farewell tour (which kinda pissed me off because it wasn’t exactly allowing Testament to have more time writing material for this record consistently) stopped it from seeing an early release. But it’s finally here. I already mentioned in the past this has probably become a phase of releasing a record every four years. The first one, being The Formation of Damnation, wasn’t the best, but succeeded by two quality records thereafter. Titans of Creation being the worst out of the four. If you take the Billboard 200 charts into account, going from Brotherhood of the Snake that’s ranked 20 in the chart, while the new record gets the rank of 96, that’s a significant drop. Perhaps it’s a drop from mainstream, yet sounds commercial. It’s also their longest record since their first commercial record The Ritual.

The first two songs give a weak impression of the music. Sounding commercial, somewhat repetitive and nothing you haven’t listened to before. At least Chuck sounds a bit like his younger-self, or in the approach he started making music. But the music isn’t the best. The latter is potentially better with more grooves and a shredded guitar solo, but has repetitive choruses. You can also hear a traditional heavy metal sound to a song like Dream Deceiver, yet it just doesn’t work properly. Chuck also introduced shrieking of some kind in Night of the Witch, but the song itself is bland than catchy. The first portion ends with Ishtar’s Gate, resulting in a long and not so interesting, but at least there’s potential in the last two songs and the bass feels alive.

As you can see, the second portion is shorter than the first but slightly more interesting, heavy, technical, and enjoyable. For starters, Symptoms should have been the opening song for its malicious heaviness and groove. Code of Hammurabi that betters the overall sound, which most of the songs should have revolved around. It’s got great technically, sounds fresh, very energetic, and has originality. The last and shortest song being the only one to introduce blast beats to this album, and more frequent shrieking gives the album another musical outlook. The sad part of it all is the outro. It’s composed so damn well, that since I’m a death metal fan, it reminds me a lot of Nile and Nocturnus. Totally unexpected and quite undeserving.

Titans of Creation is a pretty weak record for a strong lineup. The length was unnecessary for being almost one hour long. Much like The Formation of Damnation, I had to go back and forth, though for the most part the new record isn’t growing on me. The majority of the guitars’ writing was generic, while the drums were dull. For Gene in particular, either he was absent but credited in the album, or he needed some assistance behind the kit. I can’t hear his ferocious legging machinery! Musically, the bass’s experimentation and showing some atmosphere, while Chuck makes the music sound old school again are wrothy notes, but the latter (the Chuck reference) unfortunately paled. The album does show some potential, however, the execution was bad. Maybe if it was released after Dark Roots of Earth, it could’ve sounded better. I know I’m in (perhaps a strong) minority by liking Brotherhood of the Snake, but combined with the sounds of the last two records, the heaviness kinda fades away, and the atmosphere is missing for a record that potentially suggests atmosphere, judging by its cover and title. The best tracks are Code of Hammurabi and the outro Catacombs.