First Strike Still Deadly

So Testament decided to take a trip down the memory lane and re-record some of their classic songs from their two first albums, The Legacy and The New Order. Chuck and Eric have gotten Alex Skolnick back to play the lead guitar on the remakes. Even Steve Souza (Exodus), who used to sing vocals in The Legacy, a early version of Testament, does the vocals on two tracks here. Five of the songs appear on The Legacy, five on The New Order and 'Reign of Terror' is a song from their demo times (a live version appears on Return to the Apocalyptic City EP).

It is debatable if First Strike Still Deadly is worth of a release since all of the songs have already been recorded. For an old fan it is just an interesting album and not necessary since they already own the songs on other CDs. The album is more directed towards new Testament fans who this way have a chance to check out some classic Testament tracks which have better production and are otherwise up to date.

The production is top notch, if talking from a technical point of view. Everything is perfectly balanced and audible but somehow it just seems totally wrong. Bay area thrash was never meant for this kind of production. The guitars must sound sharp and raw, not clear and clean like on First Strike Still Deadly. Also Chuck Billy does the vocals like on The Gathering and while they fitted there, such harsh vocals don't fit these classics. I'm not sure if he is still capable of doing such thrash vocals as he did on The Legacy and The New Order but it didn't sound like that in Dynamo 2000 nor on this album.

Souza sings the vocals on 'Reign of Terror' and 'Alone in the Dark'. He has taken part in the making of those songs, hence he sings them. Souza used to be the vocalist of Exodus (and once again is), another very succesful Bay area thrash band. His versions of those two classics are rather intriguing since his vocals differ quite much from Chuck's. Souza actually sounds somewhat similar with Blitz from Overkill. The other visitor, Alex Skolnick, perfoms his solos well. He is definetly good but the fire of the original recordings is missing. I love Skolnick's solowork but it's only good at best on FSSD.

The tracks with Steve Souza sound rather interesting though they are only two. All in all it's a good album for new thrash fans to get acquinted with the past though I'd recommend getting the actual albums since they are cheaper than this one even if you both of them at the same time.

(Originally released in Tuonela Webzine (c) 2001)