Titans of Creation

Bay-area thrash institution Testament have been snapping necks since the mid-80s, cranking out albums of consistent music that rarely strays from the formula they first cooked up on The Legacy back in 1987. They are becoming the Motörhead of the Bay-area sound as each album is immediately identifiable as being by Testament and only the songwriting quality setting individual releases apart. The last four, up to 2020's Titans of Creation, have varied wildly in that department with Dark Roots of Earth being a monster of dark atmosphere and crushing heaviness and its predecessor (The Formation of Damnation) and successor (Brotherhood of the Snake) being rather forgettable, when not actively foolish (see "Black Jack" from Brotherhood). With Titans of Creation, Testament's songwriting is back on the upswing and, while nowhere near as engaging as Dark Roots, it is better than anything else in the past dozen years.

Skolnick and Peterson are kings of thrash riffing and solos, Chuck Billy has the prototypical enraged bellow and Gene Hoglan is, of course, godlike as usual (Sorry Steve DiGiorgio, I don't have any superlatives for your bass work this time around). Lyrically, we're back to more traditional thrash topics like war ("WWIII"), social commentary ("False Prophets") and the occult ("Curse of Osiris") after trying to be more topical on the last album. The damning thing about the songs on Titans of Creation is that they are good but not very distinctive and sound like they could have come from any prior Testament record since 2000. There's nothing wrong with them and you will bang your head, it's Testament after all, but you might not remember any particular track when the album is over. It is still a safe purchase for thrash fans everywhere.