TESTAMENT's CHUCK BILLY Says Remixed Version Of 1990's 'Souls Of Black' Album Will Arrive In 2027: 'It Sounds So Good, Really Modern And Raw'

In a new interview with Stig Gøran Nordahl of Norway's Metal Express Radio, TESTAMENT singer Chuck Billy confirmed that there are plans for him and his bandmates to release a remixed version of their fourth album, 1990's "Souls Of Black". He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Me and [TESTAMENT guitarist] Eric [Peterson] took back all the Atlantic records, the six records we did with [the] Atlantic [major record label]. Now we took them back. Next year we get 'The Ritual' [1992] back, and a few years later we'll get 'Low' [1994] back. But right now we have 'The Legacy' [1987], 'The New Order' [1988], 'Practice What You Preach' [1989] and now 'Souls Of Black'. And we remastered all the others — 'The Legacy', 'The New Order' and 'Practice' — because we couldn't find the two-inch master reels, so we just did a remastering. But 'Souls Of Black', we had all the tracks, so we went in there and remixed it, and it sounds great. I can't wait for people to hear it. It sounds so good. Really modern sound and raw. It sounds good."

Regarding what happened to cause the original version of "Souls Of Black" to sound so underwhelming, Chuck said: "Well, we put our faith in the producers, engineers, people mixing it. We were young, and we put a record out every year and toured. We didn't know the studio or none of that stuff. We were just writing songs and recording, so we left it up to the people in charge. In the end, we wanted it to sound better, but we didn't know how to make it sound better. It took us 35, 40 years later for us to get in a studio and put up the tracks again and go, 'Oh, God, that sounds bad. Let's fix that.' So now that's what we've done, and it just sounds... I hear the songs way different now, because you can really hear the guitars are so heavy and the vocals aren't all wet and reverbed out. We pulled a lot of stuff back and made it really raw and hit you a lot harder. So, yeah, it's way better."

Asked if he was tempted to go in and re-sing some of his vocal tracks on "Souls Of Black" to make them better, Chuck said: "I thought I would. But I was very happy with all the vocals. It was actually a very strong performance on all the tracks. There was no... Nothing, when we listened to it, said, 'Oh, oh, I wanna change that,' or, 'Oh, I don't like that.' All of it was... I had a good performance on that record, so that helped. I didn't have to fix anything."

As for a possible release date for the remixed version of "Souls Of Black", Billy said: "That'll be next year sometime. Right now we're still pushing the original version with Nuclear Blast. And then next year, once that's done and we got a really cool packaging put together, that'll come out next year."

In a 2013 interview with The Great Southern Brainfart, Peterson stated about "Souls Of Black": "I wouldn't have rushed out 'Souls Of Black' like we did. That album could've been something different. It is a classic record now, but it was just thrown together so quickly."

In the summer of 2023, TESTAMENT entered a new partnership with Nuclear Blast which secured the first six albums of the band's catalog in the United States. Starting in late 2023 the band saw the re-release of the first two albums. In January 2025, the reissue of TESTAMENT's third album, the band's seminal 1989 effort "Practice What You Preach", was made available. The original master of the album was released as a CD, an orange bone swirl LP, a limited-edition orange cassette (700 worldwide),and a limited-edition long box (CD, sticker, and button, limited to 500).

TESTAMENT's latest album, "Para Bellum", came out last October via Nuclear Blast. The LP was recorded with Juan Urteaga and mixed for the first time by Jens Bogren. The cover art was once again painted by Eliran Kantor.

When "Para Bellum" was first announced in August 2025, it was accompanied by the official music video for "Infanticide A.I.", directed by Joey Durango.

Photo credit: Fred Kowalo