Legendary bay area thrash metal band, Testament, recently announced the release of their forthcoming thirteenth full length studio album Titans of Creation slated for an April 3 release, via Nuclear Blast Records. Testament’s latest musical offering is the follow up project to their twelfth full length studio album, 2016’s Brotherhood of The Snake. According to a press release, the recording process behind Titans of Creation consisted of the album being “…produced by Chuck Billy and Eric Peterson while Juan Urteaga of Trident Studios handled co-producing, recording and engineering. Andy Sneap was responsible for the mixing and mastering of the album. Eliran Kantor stepped up once again to create a new masterpiece of artwork for the cover of this release.”
The lead single off Testament’s Titans of Creation “Night of the Witch” was released with an accompanied official lyric music video on Friday, January 31. The track starts of with brief slithering cymbals that quickly picks up with aggressively piercing guitar chords, followed by rapid percussion that simultaneously blend together with quintessential thrash metal gusto. The video opens as lethal as the music is, with ghastly images of a snake slithering through a skull as the video itself is set in the backdrop of murky woods under a pale moonlight. The video features a scantly clad woman, adorned with a skelatal headdress, whose hand movements suggests she is conjuring spirits. This is parallel to the lyrics of the track within the first couple of lines stating, “Behold the face of terror, open the gates of hell/The season of the witch, hell casts its deadly spell.”
Testaments current touring roster consists of Chuck Billy (lead vocals), Alex Skolnick (lead guitar), Eric Petersen (rhythm/lead guitar and vocals), Steve Di Giorgio (bass guitar) and Gene Hoglan (drums). The aforementioned press release furthers that the iconic thrash metal collective, with origins that date back as early as 1982, “Still filled with a massive and unstoppable energy since their last release, Testament has taken their style to the next level and present an album that is loyal to the roots of traditional thrash metal while still including alluring, brilliant, and progressive ingredients they are known for.”
Speaking on the genesis behind Testaments’ latest musical offering and the various elements that went into their latest single “Night of the Witch” frontman Chuck Billy says:
“It has been months since the final mixing of ‘Titans Of Creation‘ and we are eager for fans to hear it. We feel that we put a lot into this record and at the end of the day it is a Testament record that stands on its own. We are very proud of Titans Of Creation.“
“‘Night Of The Witch’ uses old school lyrics about witches chanting in the moonlight and casting spells. The beauty of this song is that I worked in Eric’s vocals into the chorus. I wanted to incorporate him as he does Dragonlord and this song was a perfect match. It is a heavy song and a great way to introduce everyone to‘Titans Of Creation'”.
To listen to “Night of the Witch” stream below, via YouTube.
Photo Credit: Ekaterina Gorbacheva