Review by Sonny for Testament - Titans of Creation (2020)

I'm gonna go against perceived wisdom here and say that I really enjoyed this thirteenth and latest album from the Bay Area veteran thrashers. When their contemporaries have basically thrown the towel in and either called it a day or pretty much dispensed with thrash metal altogether, Testament are still going strong and tearing out riffs like they're going out of style. Those riffs are groove-laden, medium pacers for the most part, but they're still great and couple that with the album's real strengths, the mesmerising and incendiary solos and Chuck Billy's still unbelievably vibrant vocals and you have a winner in my book. Sure, it's too long, a lot of the lyrics are hokey nonesense and there's a song about nuclear war (how much more 1980's can you get), but I just spent all morning listening to this, nodding my head, tapping my feet and with a big smile on my face, despite being in pandemic lockdown.