Metal-Rules spoke to Testament’s Chuck Billy about their upcoming album Titans Of Creation, due for release April 3.

Speaking about the song diversity on the album, Billy says: “We achieved that because of the way we approached the songwriting process. When Eric (Peterson, guitars) and I write, he typically gives me the music and has suggestions of how I should sing over the riffs. In the past, I would say something like, ‘I’d rather sing the verse with the bridge riff’ or something to that effect. This time around, I received the music from him and didn’t have a lot of his direction, so I just wrote and vibed to what he gave me. I think that is why the songs have their own unique identity. If the key was a little out of my comfort zone on some songs, in the past, I would simply suggest singing them in a more comfortable key. With this CD, I just went for it, took on the challenge, and got out of my comfort zone with some of the vocals. It was for the better as it pushed me. 

“I think that is what makes the songs more diverse. The songs have different textures as well as different vocal approaches like on ‘City Of Angels.’ They all took on their own life as we put them together. Also, we went into the studio without songs being complete or demo’ed on how we would lay them down. We had the parts, worked it out in the studio, and it all came together. They took on their own life. There were a handful of songs that weren’t complete so for those songs we would just hit record, and I would start mumbling to find melodies and words. On ‘Dream Deceiver’ and ‘WWIII,’ there are lines in there that we kept from the first time I sang them. As a band, we tended to stick with our first impressions for a lot of things. We really didn’t have a lot of time to overthink or react to anything. We created as we went, which was challenging, but at the end of it all, the songs came out with their own identity and stand on their own.”

Titans Of Creation was 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.

Titans Of Creation will be available in the following formats:

- CD Digipak
- Light Blue Cassette (Limited to 250)
- DLP + CD Mail-order Box Set (Limited to 1500)
* Includes Earth Element Vinyl
- Vinyl
* Fire Element Edition Vinyl (Limited to 2150)
* Air Element Edition Vinyl
* Water Element Edition Vinyl
* Blue Vinyl (Limited to 500; Retail)
- T-shirt
- TS+ DLP bundle

Pre-order the formats of your choosing here.  Pre-save the album on Spotify, Apple Music and Deezer, here.

Tracklisting:

"Children Of The Next Level"
"WWII"
"Dream Deceiver"
"Night Of The Witch"
"City Of Angels"
"Ishtars Gate"
"Symptoms"
"False Prophet"
"The Healers"
"Code Of Hammurabi"
"Curse Of Osiris"
"Catacombs"

"Children Of The Next Level" visualizer:

"Night Of The Witch" lyric video:

"Element" trailers:

Steve Di Giorgio:

Alex Skolnick:

Eric Peterson: