Welcome to another edition of From My Collection. This week, we head back in time to the Bay Area circa 1987. After years of demos, live shows, and hard work, Legacy is finally getting their feet off the ground. By thrash metal standards, they’re “late to the game”. Their peers are already headlining arenas (Metallica), causing moral panic (Slayer), providing the theme music to MTV News (Megadeth), and inventing death metal (Possessed). Meanwhile, Legacy is about to record their first album, only to be confronted by a roadblock: Their name is already registered by another band. At the suggestion of infamous S.O.D. frontman, Billy Milano, Legacy becomes Testament just in time to release their appropriately titled debut album, The Legacy. The album’s release ushered in a seldom talked about second wave of thrash. This week’s essay explains its role in this boom, as well as why it’s Testament’s finest hour. Now who’s ready to go “Over the Wall”?
As mentioned in the introductory paragraph, we can’t talk about Testament without talking about Legacy. The band formed way back in 1983. To put things into perspective, Dave Mustaine was still in Metallica, Kirk Hammett was still in Exodus, and Slayer was wearing spandex. Legacy too was far from the band we’d come to know as Testament. Their frontman was not Chuck Billy, but rather future Exodus singer, Steve “Zetro” Souza. It was Souza who wrote nearly all of the lyrics for the songs that would end up on The Legacy. In 1985, the band released their self titled demo. In the following summer of 1986, Souza would depart to join Exodus. Enter Chuck Billy.
The arrival of Billy solidified Testament’s signature sound: straightforward, no holds barred thrash. You have to keep in mind that when The Legacy dropped, thrash bands were veering towards a more brutal approach to the genre, more in vein with what we know today as death and black metal. Testament is not without their brutal moments, but these moments are strictly confined to the realm of thrash. Their ethos is perfectly summed up on the album’s opening track, “Over the Wall”. Billy unleashes a gruff vocal delivery, yet one that is slightly more melodic and controlled than Metallica’s James Hetfield. The guitar interplay between Alex Skolnick and Eric Peterson is technical, but not too technical. Skolnick’s flashy solos certainly prove he’s a graduate from the University of Satriani. The riffs switch between machine gun thrash and mosh friendly breakdowns. Rounding it all out is the thundering rhythms of Greg Christian and Louie Clemente, enough to open the gates of hell itself. Put it all together and you’ve got Testament’s first “hit”. “Over the Wall” didn’t get any mainstream rock radio airplay, but its accompanying video exposed the band to millions on Headbangers Ball.
“The Haunting” is arguably the techiest song on the album, particularly thanks to its mind bending intro. The oddball riffing of Skolnick and Peterson foreshadows what was to come for bands like Toxik and Heathen. It should be noted that the lyrics to this song and many others demonstrate pseudo-occult themes, inspired by the likes of Mercyful Fate and Slayer. Considering these themes are far and few in between on subsequent releases, we can thank Souza for this contribution. The lyrics definitely match the sinister atmosphere of the album throughout. “Burnt Offerings” doubles down on these themes, while the dynamic duo of Skolnick and Peterson deliver an absolute earworm of a hook. “Raging Waters” is very much in the vein of “Over the Waters”: meat and potatoes thrash that bounces between midtempo and breakneck. Side A closes out with my choice cut, and the most brutal track on the album, “C.O.T.L.O.D.” (Curse of the Legions of Death). If there’s any one song on here that comes close to death metal, it’s this. The riffs and rhythms are faster than the speed of light, or more precisely, faster than your average thrasher. If Billy’s vocals were just a tad bit rougher (as they’d become on future 90s release), we seriously might be discussing Testament’s contribution to the development of death metal.
As we flip over to side B, we’re greeted by “First Strike is Deadly”. With such a title, I was always perplexed as to why this wasn’t the opening track. It definitely has all the qualities of a memorable opener. Billy screams his head off like a barbaric King Diamond to a series of ominous mosh riffs. The neoclassical Randy Rhoads soloing is the icing on the cake. These melodic moments are laced throughout the entire album, but are most memorable on here. “Do or Die” keeps the infernal aggression going, while “Alone in the Dark (my second favorite track) lies firmly alongside “Burnt Offerings” in the earworm category. The Legacy closes with arguably its second most popular track, “Apocalyptic City”. It’s nearly as brutal as “C.O.T.L.O.D.”, albeit arranged to highlight the progressive, technical, and melodic abilities of Skolnick and Peterson. It’s no wonder the band continues to play it live almost nightly.
The creative and commercial success of The Legacy paved the way for a new crop of thrashers, as well as furthered the success of Testament’s peers before them. Think of all the masterpiece late 80s thrash albums that were released in the wake of The Legacy: Death Angel’s The Ultra-Violence, Vio-Lence’s Eternal Nightmare, Heathen’s Breaking the Silence, Toxik’s World Circus. The list goes on. This unrelenting second wave of thrash only helped make the first wave titans bigger, which in turn opened a door for these very bands to score major label deals and make it themselves. Could you have ever imagined Suicidal Tendencies ending up on Headbangers Ball or Rigor Mortis being signed to Capitol Records? I couldn’t, but The Legacy had a significant role in making that possible. Testament has been rather consistent since, but nothing touches the raw power of The Legacy. The New Order comes close, but even that is more polished and melodic than its predecessor. The Legacy‘s legacy is a force to be reckoned with. The first strike is indeed the deadliest.