Titans of Creation

... if it wasn't for its phoned-in structure.

Now, Testament is one of those bands that you can always count on. Ever since Alex Skolnick came back, 'The Formation of Damnation' and two follow-ups have been a wild ride. Even 'Dark Roots of Earth' with couple of flawed songs managed to keep me engaging, and do I have to say anything about 'Brotherhood of the Snake'? Hoping that this tendency of straight-up Testament masterpiece will remain on 'Titans of Creation', I went to listening this album with an expectation that this album has not sadly met.

But, it's not like 'Titans of Creation' is a total garbage or even mediocre release. A lot elements that made me, or you, like Testament, still remain. Chuck Billy's vocals are as good as they have ever been, Eric Peterson provides killer riffs and nice backing vocals, which will make Dragonland fans happy, or ask for more. And Skolnick kills it with his leads, and Eric has a fair share in playing them as well. Steve DiGiorgio has a lot of input into rhytmic sections, and Gene Hoglan provides fantastic work on his set as always, even if the blasts are a little non-existant. 'Titans of Creation' starts up pretty strong with 'Children of the Next Level' and 'WWIII', which maybe my... second? Third? Or maybe even forth favorite album opening by Testament, sharing the spot with 'The Gathering', 'The New Order' and 'Brotherhood of the Snake'. And follow-up 'Dream Deceiver' is a great hard'n'heavy track in the veins of 'The Evil Has Landed', which I also liked a lot.

However, that's where everything starts to kinda fall apart. 'Night of the Witch' is okay, but its first half becomes way too monotonous to listen to it on repeat. 'City of Angels' is a great half-ballad, it does everything what 'Cold Embrace' failed at. It's followed up by truly lame 'Ishtar's Gate', which tries to be another 'Dream Deceiver' and it's simply boring. Having almost 4 slower songs after 2 fast one is not really a good way to make an alb-Wait, 5 slower songs after 2 fast?! That has to be joke, this can't be real. I mean, even fucking 'The Gathering', which I never consider a good album, managed to squeze 'Legion of the Dead' after getting snorefests like 'Three Days In Darkness' or 'True Believer'. To be fair though, 'Symptoms' is a pretty good heavy metal track, and Testament almost always seem to have a knack on making those. After that, we're finally getting something fast, with 'False Prophets', but after waiting to pick up the pace for so longs, it should have been even crazier that it already is. Then we slow down YET AGAIN with 'The Healers'. And YET AGAIN, it's a pretty good heavy metal stuff, but come on, we already have enough of those!

Fear not, we finally got what we were waiting for, 'Code of Hammurabi' and 'Curse of Osiris' are 2 of the most badass stuff Testament has done in years, and their track record (ha ha...) didn't made it easy. And yet, finishing on their live shows intro, 'Catacombs', I leave 'Titans of Creation' confused. How did Testament fall down from such engaging tracklist on 'Brotherhood (...)' and 'Dark Roots of Earth' to this trainwreck? It reminds of 'Humanicide' by Death Angel released a year ealier, where a shitty tracklist buried the entire record which had almost only bangers.

That's what I've been saying in my 'Ride The Lightning' review, you don't just put tracks randomly! If I put on a Testament album, I don't want to sit through 5 slow songs one after another to hear the faster ones. And don't call it "a buildup", it's not. Someone just clearly had no idea what are they doing. I mean seriously, what's with the bands that once made great albums with proper track listing, like Overkill, Kreator or Sodom? It's mind-numbing how much the bands are just giving up with making good tracklists, instead of putting actual effort.

Wanna hear/read my advice? Throw out 'Ishtar's Gate' entirely, set the tracklist like this:
'Catacombs'
'Curse of Osiris'
'Dream Deceiver'
'Children of the Next Level'
'City of Angels'
'The Healers'
'False Prophets'
'Symptoms'
'Code of Hammurabi'
'Night of the Witch'
'WWIII'
... and you got something that 'Titans of Creation' should have been in a first place. It's an album loaded with great songs and a lot of potential, but the tracklist really works against it. And it saddens me we're receiving more albums like that.