Albums such as this where a band takes some of their classic songs and re-records them with updated production are kinda tricky business, because your always gonna have fans that say “what was wrong with the way it sounded before? I liked it that way” and turn away from it. In the case of Testament though, I, being the Testament fanboy that I am, think they’ve done pretty well with First Strike Still Deadly, a collection of ten songs split between their first two albums, The Legacy and The New Order.

First I gotta say I love the song selection – all of my favorites from those first two albums are represented here, though I would’ve love to have seen “Apocolyptic City” or “Do or Die” included as well. Most of the songs benefit greatly from the updated production values, especially all the tracks from The Legacy (“Over the Wall”, “The Haunting”, “Burnt Offerings”, “First Strike Is Deadly”, and “Alone in the Dark”) as it gives them much more punch and heft. The riffs have been made to sound heavier, Skolnick’s leads and solos are pushed forward and clarified much more to really jump out and grab your attention, and the drums (handled here by John Tempesta) seem to hit harder to add more strength to the final product.

From The New Order, “Into the Pit”, “Disciples of the Watch” and the title track are also improved by the re-recording, though on “Trial by Fire” and “The Preacher”, they seemed to have lost a certain quality and some of charm that the old, rawer styled production gave them.

Vocals: Chuck Billy for the most part stays true to his original performances, though naturally his voice is a bit deeper, and in some places here and there has changed the delivery to his more guttural approach that didn’t surface until the later albums. The most interesting and surprising thing though is the inclusion of original Testament (then known as Legacy) vocalist Steve “Zetro” Souza, who of course left the band to join Exodus following the departure of Paul Baloff on “Alone in the Dark” and a Testament cut I’ve never heard before “Reign of Terror”. On “Alone in the Dark”, you can tell that those vocal lines were meant for Zetro as he sounds good and very natural singing them, though Chuck Billy will always be THE vocalist for Testament – they just wouldn’t be them without him.

In conclusion, if you’re a Testament fan, there’s really no reason why you shouldn’t check this out, unless your just that against the idea of them tampering with some of your favorite tunes, because they’ve done a hell of job of re-recording and actually improving upon the originals.

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