Testament
Titans Of Creation

Let's start with the fact that only God knows how much I hated bands like Destruction and (especially) Kreator in the early 2000s. I say especially Kreator because after delivering five Thrash Metal albums, each more beautiful than the last, and after an appreciable but still debatable experimental phase, they returned to the fold with their tails between their legs, playing a very melodic Thrash that strayed too far from their identity, which I never digested in the various interviews with the justification of "we are evolving". Fortunately, the Testament managed to avoid all this.

After the release of "The Gathering", which represented a second life for the band after previous works that performed terribly in terms of sales, the band took a hard blow with Chuck Billy's lung and heart cancer in 2001, resurfacing on the music market only about a decade later with "The Formation Of Damnation", a work that I still appreciate today and that, while I consider it somewhat standard, does not have those insistent melodies that make me want to stop after five minutes. Following a four-year cycle, the group released album after album, leading to 2020 with "Titans Of Creation". Another album to exalt? Not really.

The Testament have fallen, slowly but they have fallen, into the trap of riffs that are self-serving and offer little by the end of a track, besides the age that inexorably advances. Take "Night Of The Witch", also chosen as a single, which if at first glance seems convincing also thanks to a very groovy pace, it shows all its weak sides starting with a production that kills all the good that was previously presented with the excellent "WWIII" and "Children Of The Next Level", although the latter has a substantial prosody. Guitars are devoid of any kind of aggressiveness, a Chuck Billy at times voiceless, and even if the almost progressive "Ishtar's Gate" and "Symptoms" show some good ideas, once again they are buried by an absolutely disgraceful sound mix both for a band of Testament's caliber and coming out under the banner of Nuclear Blast Records. I can only save the excellent "Curse Of Osiris" where finally Chuck Billy seems at ease, and "The Healers" where with relatively slower sounds the band seems unexpectedly more in their element. Another flaw, which I'm sure many will dispute with me, is Gene Hoglan. Let me say that I consider Hoglan an excellent drummer, but if someone told him he's playing in Testament, and not in the sequel to "Time Does Not Heal", it would do me a huge favor. Stylistic choices that are too elaborate for a Thrash Metal album, which distort the Testament sound too much.

From this description, I might seem like a guy whose girlfriend Chuck Billy and the others stole, but no. I love Testament, and I don't know how many times I listened with chills and a heart full of joy to albums like "The New Order", "The Legacy", or "Low". But hearing an album in 2020 with such a dreadful production, and with such disarming lack of ideas from a band with their name is sincerely embarrassing. One can only hope they don't fall into melodic Thrash, otherwise, I might reasonably consider opening my condo window and throwing myself out.