Hellyeah - Band of Brothers (2012)

As 'wishful' as I might have been that Hellyeah would suddenly manifest destiny and become the rattlesnake wranglin', tobacco spittin' Texan groove metal beast that I know lurks within it, Band of Brothers is more or less the Pantera album there never was, a pretty straight shot of tough guy tropes circa Vulgar Display of Power & Far Beyond Driven with a few clean chorus sequences to sate that disenfranchised nu/groove metal radio rock audience who need a break from the band's constant, leaden breakdowns and jumpin' bean bounce rhythms. Still, as miserable as their prior albums Hellyeah and Stampede were, this album does see a further solidarity of the band's writing skills, and I'd say the riff patterns feel more punchy and violent. If only the Dallas bruisers could thematically match the guitar lines with cooler lyrics about cacti, lassos and abandoned vehicles with trunks full of cocaine in the desert, they'd be my dream band...

Okay, I'm lying about that, but at least they'd amount to something more than drunken leather jock metal with a few cowboy hats for effect, and the sorts of banal personal lyrics that always plague the groove metal niche, loaded with cliche lines and concepts relevant to angst-ridden teens and barroom brawlers. I will say that these guys lay on the riffs quite angrily this time out, and songs like "Call It Like I See It", "War In Me" definitely draw straight from the Exhorder/Dimebag Darrell well of leaden, swaggering palm muted hostility set to Vinnie Paul's rock-infused drums. The leads tend towards bluesy, burning patterns dowsed in heavy effects, fairly fitting and lacking in overindulgence as the band careens towards their next fist swinging rhythm, always careful to set up breakdowns that will have their core audience in stitches and casts by the end of a performance. They also almost managed to get through an entire record without forcing our noses into the ballad trough, with the exception of "Between You and Nowhere" which sounds like it belongs on Load or Reload-era Metallica or a Staind record with James Hetfield guesting.

Nothing wrong with the production values here. Again, if you love Dimebag's processed but efficient tone and riffing sequences, then Maxwell and Tribbett do a respectable homage while branching out a little in the solos. I don't particularly enjoy how Chad Gray uses his voice here, but he's fluid enough in his transitions from the traditional Anselmo rrrrruuuuuaaas and hwaass to the cleaner tones or a slightly more vicious and serpentine rasp to the tough guy narrative style. Bob Kakaha's bass-lines are loud and pushy and Paul's about as peppy as the songs allow, just don't expect much extreme metal drumming, he lays down a pretty standard array of beats and fills that play more to the curving momentum of the guitars. That said, without any exception, the songs pour like wet concrete into one ear, mix around in your head, never seem to solidify, and then drip out the opposite. There is just no place for this music anymore except in tribute to the oft-maligned dregs of the 90s where thrash devolved from its inspirational roots to everyman groove bullshit. 'we walk the walk'? Indeed.

Tunes like "Rage Burn" and "Drink Drank Drunk" have no other value except the comical, and I really wish the band would put their collective necks on the line and tear out a few faster pieces instead of just moving at the mid-paced groove/step circa "Walk" or their slower breakdowns. As an example, the last song, lamely titled "What It Takes To Be Me" is about half the speed of what I'd like to hear from them. In the end, though, the lyrics and music here just do nothing for me. The riff set is surely superior to Stampede, but as someone who rarely ever feels any urge to break out his copy of Vulgar Display of Power, I can think of no impetus to seek out an album that so stands in its shadow. If you live and breathe "Mouth for War" or "I'm Broken", or blues-based groove metal bands like Black Label Society, or maybe even a heavier alternative to the German Desperadoz, then perhaps you'll have a more favorable reaction to this record than I did. To me, Band of Brothers feels like I stepped into a saloon seeking a gun fight, a prostitute and a few hands of poker with outlaws, only to discover it was some lame gift shop where the best I could do was an "I Survived the Alamo" t-shirt. Wholly forgettable when it's not outright weak.

Verdict: Fail [3/10]

http://www.hellyeahband.com/

Overkill - Wrecking Everything Live (2002)

Overkill's second live record was recorded in their native New Jersey turf, and featured a more compact set on one disc that was released alongside a DVD version. By this point the band had an entirely new pair of guitarists, Dave Linsk who had come aboard a few years prior, and Derek 'The Skull' Tailer, a more recent addition, so they've still got that extra rhythm guitar as with the previous live released in 1995. All told, the better selections here are superior in sound to Wrecking Your Neck Live, but that's also the catch: to get there, you've gotta ford a number of lame bounce metal tracks from some of the band's mediocre records, and the general quality of chosen material throughout the 13 cuts cycles back and forth between classic and nearly intolerable.

"Necroshine" (from the 1999 album of the same name) and "Thunderhead" (off Bloodletting) are a pretty poor choice to kick off this order, and to be honest with you they sound even more like lame examples of throwaway 90s groove metal in the live setting than their studio counterparts. Boasting some of the most uninteresting chord progressions in the band's entire catalog, which belong more to any random Machine Head/Pantera jump da fuc up bar band than the black and green, they hardly breed much anticipation for what follows. Thankfully, Blitz' presence is cutting and focused enough that you can, with some level of perseverance, make it nearer the middle of the disc where songs like "I Hate", "Shred" and "Deny the" fuckin' "Cross" await your attention. Hilarious to me that these oldies sound so much tighter and driven than the newer material here; it's almost like the band just knows those are the money shots, and are shoveling the crap out of the way just to push a few records they're actually touring on at the merchandise table.

Still, not all the classics get a great treatment here. "E.vil N.ever D.ies" seems a little limp, "In Union We Stand" a bit dry and repetitious despite the fans' love and involvement, and every time I listen to this I almost blank out by the time the eponymous closer "Overkill" arrives. There's another sequence of newer material with a few From the Underground and Below Tracks ("Long Time Dyin'", "It Lives") which has its moments, and the rare performance of "The Years of Decay" is not too shabby (if you like the original), but ultimately "Deny the Cross" and "Shred" destroy every other song on this several times over, even the rest of the oldies, and it makes me wonder if placing "Electro-Violence", "Rotten to the Core", "Wrecking Crew" and a handful of other goodies in the set in place of....fucking "Battle" or the lamentable "Necroshine" would not have improved it?

Despite my disdain at a few of the set choices, though, Wrecking Everything Live at least sounds decent. You get all of Blitz' great banter between the performances, and the guy sounds great singing. The backing vocals are pathetic, from the overbearing grunts to the flimsier single lines, but the bass is incredibly full sounding and the guitars juicy and thick, a double-edged sword as it makes some of the banal grooves on the newer tunes sound even more goofy. I'm just faced, once again, with the plain fact that my fallout of interest in Overkill throughout the 90s renders another of their live albums 'not really for me', while I'm sure some dude in a wifebeater and who crushes beer cans on his forehead while hailing W.F.O. and Necroshine as the greatest thrash albums of the 20th century will get his money's worth. You win some, you lose some, I just wish I hadn't bought the season pass.

Verdict: Indifference [5.5/10]

http://wreckingcrew.com/Ironbound/

Cultfinder - Black Thrashing Terror EP (2012)

The diabolic forces behind the UK's Cultfinder are not out to deceive anyone with the title of this EP. Three tracks and about 10 minutes of rabid velocity, they trample the listener with accelerated floods of fuzzed out chords, near incessant blasting beats and truly venomous, reverb laden rasps that explode into your ears like manhole covers bursting off the roof of Hell itself as its about to ejaculate its demonic contents into the mortal world. Quite a surprise, really, when you take into account that the rhythm section hails from the far slower Witchsorrow, another English trio which has had some luck on Rise Above Records, but I'd say they more than prove they can keep up with the manic bursts of infernal energy and pissed off diatribe of one Rob Belial.

The black metal half of this equation is readily apparent in the drumming and vocals, the latter of which draw upon the blueprints of Mille Petrozza, Quorthon and Dead in equal measure, but the structure of the thrash riffing is born more of a violent crossover/hardcore/grind influence than, say, Kreator or Destruction, or even the chunkier and riff-centered West Coast speed/thrash of the 80s. Cultfinder's guitar progressions are in general not very unique, clinical or complex at all, but more of an onslaught of chords that are performed at a pummeling pace in between the few doomed breakdowns where they are left to resonate over less harried drums (like the intro to the titular opener). Granted, this gives them some needed muscle when the drummer starts to open up into one of the blast beats, but the tradeoff is that the patterns are often pretty familiar and lose their capacity to surprise the listener. It's just not as riffy as something like Sentence of Death, or Sweden's Antichrist, whose debut Forbidden World remains one of the best I've heard in this niche for several years.

"Witching Curse" is probably the most varied of the tracks, if only because it lapses into some doom elements redolent of the rhythm section's other group, but I think pound for pound it is "Black Thrashing Terror" itself which provides the most carnal knuckle dusting, the most memorable bruising. I must also say that, while not wholly impressed with the actual songwriting, the production on this thing is fantastic. The guitars puerile, muddy and raw without sacrificing clarity, the drums very live and tactile, and Rob Belial's voice is the measure of snarling fiends with twice or more his experience. You might have heard this all before, but it's no less fun in the hands of these miscreants, so let the curb-stomping of Christian dreams and prayers commence! Wear armor when listening. Recommended to fans of Deathhammer, Witchburner, Bathory's s/t debut, old Kreator/Sodom, and Canadian flesh rippers like Slaughter, Revenge and Blasphemy.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

http://unholycultfinder.com/ 

Overkill - Coverkill (1999)

Complete cover albums like this one always run the risk of coming across as more of a tribute to the band's own open mindedness than the bands they cover, and by this I mean they'll usually keep the revisions as close to the original works as possible. In the case of Overkill, the 'cleverly' titled Coverkill goes a little beyond this, making the songs feel more or less like they belong in your average set tucked in between an "Elimination" or "Wrecking Crew". In other words, the selections made for this album feel natural to the band, and won't surprise anyone who followed them through their career, but they don't often deviate from the sources beyond the distinct delivery of Bobby Blitz.

This is especially the case for the numerous punk tributes here, like "No Feelings" (Sex Pistols), "I'm Against It" (Ramones) and "Ain't Nothin' to Do" (Dead Boys), which are dowsed in more muscular guitars than their originals, meatier thrash muting, but in translation lose a lot of their uniqueness and character in this polished and metalized state. The actual metal cuts the band visits are better, because they were simply superior songs to begin with. Obviously they took on the Motörhead tune from which they derived their band's name, and do a fair job by it (as the album intro), but I thought the rendition of "Tyrant" Judas Priest was appreciably wild, Blitz one of the few singers period with enough of a unique personality to stand in Halford's shadow. The inclusion of "Death Tone" by Manowar, was more unexpected, and fun due to the nasty slice of the vocals in the chorus.

Black Sabbath is given a hat trick treatment, no surprise since the UK doom gods have been a direct and overwhelming influence on a number of Overkill's past experiments, but to their credit, they varied up the choices so you have the slower doom of "Cornucopia" with a broad, raw guitar tone; the more uplifting 'eavy metal escalation of "Never Say Die", with an atmospheric performance from Blitz, and the softer rock and roll of "Changes", which I found the least impressive of this lot. Probably the most impressive cover on the whole album is Jethro Tull's "Hymn 43", which becomes a mighty, wonderfully produced, groove force of nature in the New Yorkers' hands, and if only the rest of the track list was performed at this level I'd have liked it much more. Deep Purple's "Space Truckin'" is also pretty sweet.

Nothing feels out of place here, so don't expect one of the more eclectic selections of this sort, with pop, dance or disco tunes transformed into metallic oddities (I'm lookin' at you, Helloween). Coverkill is consistent, safe and workmanlike, drawing largely from the spectrum you'd predict. Only a few of the tunes are brought up to a level of heaviness equivocal to their better originals (Motörhead in particular), but I'm not going to lie: this was a more entertaining use of my time than their mediocre new studio album, Necroshine which was also put out the same year. These covers feel like a more convincing, inspired kick in the ass, even if the mix is slightly more varied and less focused. Not a mandatory purchase by any means, but if you see it in a bargain bin for a few bucks it might earn a few spins on a road trip.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10]

http://wreckingcrew.com/Ironbound/

Blood of the Black Owl - Light the Fires! (2012)

The strength of Seattle's Blood of the Black Owl has always been its cultural novelty, hypnotic architecture and strong sense of theme and place, qualities unbroken by their latest full-length Light the Fires! Perfect atmosphere for either sunset or smokehouse, their songwriting represents more of a thorough, ritualistic transcendence more so than a gathering of riffs and melodies, and thus it's placed well outside of the traditional extreme metal realm, despite the band's incorporation of black and doom elements, which admittedly do not play a huge role here until the latter half of the track order. Spiritual, vacuous, droning and at times haunting, you're not like to hear much else like it out there, and even if it doesn't evolve heavily from the sounds of its predecessors, the increase in production values and the sheer escape invested in its architecture ensure its worthiness.

No strangers to duration, Light the Fires! clocks in at close to 75 minutes, eschewing the shorter, singular track format of A Banishing Ritual (2010) for a return to the staggering length of the first two records. Normally, I'd scoff at such swollen content, but in the case of Blood of the Black Owl, it's rather essential as they slowly unravel the oppressive walls of modern existence surrounding you and conjure you back to times of ritual, a communal interface with the natural and metaphysical. A pagan, auditory altar. I rather enjoyed the progression here, through the more ambient-focused tracks that represent the first 30+ minutes of material to the darker, sluggish and funereal turbulence of "Sundrojan" and "Soil Magicians". Numerous emotional climes are explored, from mystery to misery and back again, often beautiful despite themselves and the band's intentions to suck the black vapors from the listener's soul and devour them with droning confidence.

Instrumentally, the band explores a broad swath of sound, from modest acoustic guitars and ambient wailing to tribal or ringing percussion, from bird call-like, fluting tones and rattles to organs. The vocals are just as distinct and diverse, cycling through passages of deep, introspective chant ("Caller of Spirits") to folkish psychedelia circa Pink Floyd ("Rise and Shine"), to grisly, epic charnel growls devoid of warmth on the heaving, black/doom material. In particular, I rather like how they double up the extreme vocals with a more solemn, clean timbre (as in "Sundrojan") to create these moving, morose vistas. One particular favorite here, "Soil Magicians" evolves from soothing pipes, whispers and stream samples into this crushing sequence of fuzzy downcast doom and discord which rattled my ghost to its very foundations, and I might add that this was over the space of over 13 minutes...not an easy task to pull off without numbing or exhausting the listener, and such basal and simplistic guitar progressions you might expect on an old Pentagram or Cathedral record.

This is far clearer sounding than the past albums, with brighter tones to the ambient/ritual sequences and a more gut-wrenching swell to the distorted guitars, and in truth it might prove an easier point of entry for newcomers wishing to delve into the project's unique sound. That said, the writing doesn't quite take the veteran listener by surprise with the same level of nuance and novelty it once did. The sound palette is better expressed, but the tectonic shifting of the band's stylistic contrasts doesn't reveal much surprise. In particular I'd like to hear the band weave in some faster material, whether it manifest in sheer percussive rage or a more psychedelic freakout using organs, flutes or guitars. Not the normal modus operandi for a metal band that favors such drawn out compositions, I realize, but Blood of the Black Owl is far more than a typical funeral doom band, and a little added aural anarchy wouldn't hurt them. All told, though, Light the Fires! is another captivating experience, unlikely to turn away fans of A Feral Spirit or the s/t debut.

Verdict: Win [8.5/10]

http://bindrunerecordings.com/

Overkill - Necroshine (1999)

I don't hate that Overkill attempted to complement their thrash roots by weaving in and out of groove territory throughout the 90s (and beyond), I just hate that they did it with such a bland and laughable riff set, a flaw that plagues Necroshine for about 90% of its content and reduces it to rubble when placed even against its lackluster neighbors in their catalog. This is an album of ideas, sure, but poorly implemented ideas which, for the most part, result in little more than vapid shovelware. It might not represent the bottom of the trough in the New Yorkers' discography, but it's close enough to muss up I Hear Black's hair. Even the cover is weak, one of Travis Smith's less striking images, a skeletal Chaly re- envisioned into some relatively cluttered collage.

The best component of the album would be its production, which was handled by the band's friend Andy Katz, who also worked with D.D. Verni's other project The Bronx Casket Co. for a few albums. It's sleek, it's clean, it's got punch where necessary, and even if Overkill was not exactly a spotlight act in the late 90s, it mirrors the prowess of bigger bands: mainstream enough for a radio pop/rock audience, but still attuned for the heavy variation of the riffs. I also found that Bobby Blitz wrote some interesting harmonies and vocal lines, he was toiling with different rhythmic patterns that rarely felt lifted from the older records, often humming or singing a melody to throw off the listener. He even brought in his sister Mary to do a few backups, though they felt strangely atonal and unnecessary. The lyrics are a clear step up from a few of the albums leading to this, but there's still a sense that he's often attempting to squeeze words to create quirky, phonetic repetition with a bit of a burly blues inspiration. That said, I would hardly call any of Necroshine's chorus sequences essential or memorable, they simply seem more thought out than the rest of the instruments...

And that is where this album really falls flat for me: the guitar progressions. There are a few pure thrashers tucked into the folds, like "Revelation", but these are no more than passable. The individual rhythm and vocal lines are simply not that sticky or interesting, stock thrash which wouldn't even have earned the right of a B side during the Taking Over era. "I Am Fear" has a fraction more spunk to it, but at the same time it's pretty much predictable groove/thrash you'd expect out of Pantera or their ilk. Then there are tunes like the awful "My December", in which no amount of Blitz' charm can salvage such a banal and pedestrian slew of 2-3 note groove riffs. "Necroshine" is also suspect with its intensely generic grooves that almost make Korn or Roots era Sepultura seem complex in comparison. The incredibly dull, bass-driven doom grooves of "80 Cycles" which is about as fun as shearing corn, and despite the cleaner opening atmosphere of "Let Us Prey", it too lapses into a creative coma replete with connect-the-dots mid-paced thrash riffs that can't have taken Overkill more than 20 seconds to write.

It's sad to me that the catchiest thing on here is probably the pseudo punk anthem "Black Line", if only for the interplay of the vocal melodies with the very basic muted picking sequences, and even that doesn't have a quarter of the charisma of "Hello from the Gutter". What's even sadder is that, where so many of the group's contemporaries got called on their mistakes in the 90s, like Slayer or Megadeth, Necroshine seems to have been handed a 'free pass', when it's nearly as lame. Again, it was not a sore spot for me that the band were broadening their sound so much as they were writing such uninspired material, and this remains one of their worst albums in memory, the ringed residue of many a beer-sweat marring the surface of its inevitable function.

Verdict: Indifference [5/10] (you can't take the hell on out of me)

http://wreckingcrew.com/Ironbound/

Heretic - A Time of Crisis (2012)

L.A.'s Heretic was a band cut well short of its time when the vocalist on its excellent Breaking Point album (in 1988) decided to take the bigger gig with Metal Church, replacing David Wayne. Funny enough, other Heretic members would later form Reverend with Wayne, exacting a sort of pseudo-revenge by releasing material that, at first, was superior to what the Howe Church managed to manifest. Granted, neither of the groups would ever match Breaking Point, in my opinion, so the few followers like myself were left to mourn another casualty of the 80s, one of the best US power/thrash hybrids to happen along in that mighty decade. Naturally, when I was met by news of a reunion and a new studio album through Metal on Metal Records, I was at once both excited and trepidatious: could they live up to their impressive legacy, or would they prove another victim of time lost?

I should point out that this is NOT a Heretic with Mike Howe singing or the entire Breaking Point lineup of musicians, but instead a reunion of guitarist Brian Korban with the earlier vocalist Julian Mendez who had been present for their Torture Knows No Boundaries EP (1986), which was not nearly so memorable, but decent enough power/trad metal for its time. Mendez had a pretty interesting contrast in his voice, between screeches and a grimier lower range, but the songs supporting him weren't entirely appealing, whereas the ensuing Breaking Point was a veritable riff-fest that played well to the moments of clean/acoustic atmosphere and the grating edge to Mike Howe's voice. The remainder of the lineup for this reunion is new to the band, but both bassist Angelo Espino and guitarist Glenn Rogers have a formidable history of involvements in groups as widespread as Hirax, Bitch, Vengeance Rising/Once Dead, Uncle Slam and even Reverend. So, not their first time at the dance, and their background in speed and thrash metal make them excellent choices to fill the shoes of alumni like Dennis O'Hara and Bobby Marquez.

With all of these changes, I'm satisfied to say that A Time of Crisis maintains a natural continuity with its predecessor Breaking Point, even though there are a few shifts in climate. You're still getting the simpler, well constructed songwriting and powerful riffs, only the emphasis here is a bit more on the crushing weight of the thrash elements, with an increased use of muted potency and even a few breakdown grooves that seem a better fit for how Mendez' vocals have evolved through the years. Here the guy has a much deeper overall inflection, with a lot of hoarse and strain on it, but while he might not pull out a scream as he once did, it works out well when he raises pitch to hit the chorus. Certainly the guy's voice is leaden, and carries well within the span of the riffing architecture, yet it does take a little use to getting used to unless you're a huge fan of the harsher power metal singers like Chris Boltendahl of Grave Digger, in which case you'll feel right at home (Mendez isn't nearly so gravelly, in fact).

Musically, there seems a parallel evolution towards what you might have heard on the latest Helstar album, or the past decade worth of Vicious Rumors releases. Traditional 80s metal influences like Judas Priest have their skeletons festooned with fat and muscle, and the beefy and heavy distorted guitar tone used by Korban and Rogers is applied with effective crunch. The songs possess a fair amount of variation, from the more upbeat power/thrash of "Tomorrow's Plague" or the soaring "Child of War" to the mid paced mosh brutes like "For Your Faith" and "Betrayed". The guitar progressions aren't all that fresh or innovative, but they're cleaved efficiently by the lead sequences and they mix up the central patterns with enough thrust and bombast that I was oft reminded me of Testament's airy underrated record The Ritual, which also strode the threshold between metallic sub-genres. Add to this a snap performance from the new drummer Iggy Coppola and you've got a well rounded comeback record that doesn't really disappoint.

A Time of Crisis is not without its flaws. I, for one, didn't care for the new version of the band's eponymous "Heretic", vastly preferring the Mike Howe version. The riffs are effective, but not the stickiest in terms of wanting to listen through them until your ears fall off. Also, as I mentioned, Mendez has a pretty unique voice that wasn't the easiest to adapt to up front. After a number of spins, though, I was happy that band managed a mild reinvention of their 80s sound without sounding trendy or trite, or resting too much on the laurels of their past. Fans of Vicious Rumors, Reverend, late 80s Metal Church and the newer albums by Meliah Rage will probably dig this, and even if it's not perfect, it's far from a disgrace to the Heretic brand.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

http://www.hereticusa.com/

Overkill - The Killing Kind (1996)

The Killing Kind represented another shuffling of the deck for the Overkill roster, bringing in ex-Anvil guitarist Sebastian Marino, and perhaps more surprisingly, ex-Liege Lord screamer Joe Comeau, to replace Merritt Gant and Rob Cannavino. Both had been playing in a local New York power metal act called Ramrod, which is possibly where the connection was made with the 'kill, and with them comes a more muscular sense of percussive rhythm, one of The Killing Kind's most distinguishing features. This is also an album in which Bobby Blitz decided to go entirely over the top, bat shit crazy, and thus the vocal and lyrical patterns here are a lot more fun than the two previous albums, even if they're not exactly brain-searing memorable.

Throughout the 90s, the Overkill crowd was largely a curious mix of remnant heshers, hardcore fans, bikers and punks, and I think this album definitely plays to a 'tough guy' personality more than its predecessors, but as far as the songwriting is concerned, the content is decidedly varied. You've got the more groove-oriented mid-paced sequences in opener "Battle", "Bold Face Pagan Stomp", "The Cleansing" or "Cold, Hard Fact"; the atmospheric, dark ballads like "The Morning After / Private Bleeding" or the far more interestingly structured "Burn You Down/To Ashes" with its moody bass and eerie clean guitars; and then some testicle-kicking, hi-octane 80s thrash in the form of "God-Like" which I frankly wish there were more of. Sadly, not a lot of these songs have ever really stuck with me. I purchased the album, spun it a few times and then gladly designated it to the dusty CD rack, with nary an urge to break it out and pummel along to it; but that doesn't take away from its well-rounded, dynamic flow of fisticuffs.

I also feel as if The Killing Kind proved another natural evolutionary step towards modernity, perhaps the first of significance since The Years of Decay. Prior recordings had some punch and heft to them, but this felt like it was truly structured to thrust the band back into the spotlight they had skirted with the early records. The drums here sound great, Mallare's fills and change-ups driving a lot of the almost tribal subtext of the songs, while Blitz is fucking everywhere, supplementing his rabid, impish inflection with everything from quirky rhythmic effects, call and response and even some creepy chanting in the bridge of "God-Like". Both Comeau and Marino are solid lead-smiths, and as they zip back and forth they never lose momentum, plus most importantly: the flesh of the rhythm guitars on this record seem to finally have found equal footing with D.D. Verni's acrobatic bass lines, and thus The Killing Kind maintains a refreshing equilibrium.

In the end though, the level of polish to this record is not enough to earn it high accolades, nor would I ever consider it one of the more successful outings in the Overkill canon. As barked and belligerent as the vocals get through the record, the chorus passages don't have the same staying power as many the band wrote for the 80s, and I'm not feeling the inherent bounciness of a lot of the grooves. Even when they're played at a higher speed or a set-up for a more complex pattern, songs like "Battle" are admittedly vapid and sound like little effort was placed in anything other than getting the studio levels right. The lyrics are also pretty bad here, played more for phonetic thrills than gravitas. The cover of the album is truly one of their most boring, I liked the icon as it was presented on W.F.O. but this comes off like a cheap computer graphic, not nearly so poignant as it might have. Overall, this is better than the two leading up to it, and if you're curious to hear a blend of say...80s Overkill/Metallica with Machine Head, then it strikes the right matches, but the wind of ages quickly snuffs them from the memory.

Verdict: Indifference [6.25/10] (ya need a full time cage)

http://wreckingcrew.com/Ironbound/

Overkill - Wrecking Your Neck Live (1995)

No one could ever rake Overkill over the coals for some premature live recording, they waited an entire decade and seven full-length studio LPs before venturing into this territory, and when they did, the format was undeniably in the fan's favor: two discs, 22 tracks and well over 100 minutes of material spanning their career to date. Technically, they had put out a few rare short-form releases with live tracks, but this was really their first commercial product of its type, and more substantial than what a lot of thrash bands had offered through the 80s on their first live discs. This was highly representative of where the band was at this point, an unstoppable 18-wheeler rambling through the 90s without looking back, the only sacrifice to their momentum coming in songwriting quality.

Unfortunately, the real obstacle for me in this recording is that it's just not 'made for me'. As someone who had a muted reaction to their more recent fare like I Hear Black and W.F.O., the emphasis on the newer material in the set holds little value. Granted, it made sense that they'd be incorporating current compositions into 1995 gig, but few if any of these particular tunes seem improved to me in the live arena. The selection of cuts drawn off the records I love is rather skimpy: just "Rotten to the Core" from Feel the Fire, "Wrecking Crew" and "Powersurge" from Taking Over, "Hello from the Gutter" from Under the Influence and then "Elimination" from The Years of Decay (they also perform "Skullkrusher", but it's a drag as always). Now, compare this to the inclusion of FIVE tracks from Horrorscope or SEVEN from W.F.O. and you've got an album inherently skewed away from my attention span. In their defense, they only break out two tracks from the unwelcome I Hear Black ("Spiritual Void", "World of Hurt"), but that's as many as they played from any of the classics...

Aside from that, Wrecking Your Neck Live just doesn't sound particularly great to me, which is a shame since it's delivered with audible clarity: punchy guitars, omnipresent bass, bleeding leads, capable drumming and Blitz summoned at just the proper level not to drown out the instruments. I think the mix just feels a little dry to my ears, as if each constituent track was leveled out but they just couldn't make them sound all that exciting. The cheers from the Ohio crowd are nice, often drifting into a spectral presence behind calmer moments in the set (like the exclusive bass/guitar instrumental "Anxiety" which is decent), and Blitz is the consummate entertainer when he speaks out between each of the band's pummeling concoctions, but in all the album never struck me as one of those essential live experiences like, say, Live Without Sense.

That said, it's also far from one of the worst I've heard, and fans who clung closely to the band's 1991-94 evolution and enjoyed all those records with Merritt Gant and Rob Cannavino will find it climactic, as this was also their swan song with Overkill. I am just not to be counted among these, and while I had hoped the live translations of several of the songs might further enamor me to them, I remained indifferent, not only from this album, but from several of their gigs I attended in person. With a little less Horrorscope or W.F.O., and perhaps a few other essentials like "Hammerhead", "Shred", "Deny the Cross" and "Electro-Violence", I'd have been more interested.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10] 

http://wreckingcrew.com/Ironbound/

Overkill - W.F.O. (1994)

Gods know acronyms were never in short supply in the thrash metal scene, but the motorcycling term W.F.O. (for 'Wide Fuckin' Open') seems wildly appropriately for the tension and release Overkill had expressed in their best years. Naturally, with the title and songs like "Fast Junkie" on the track list, I had some anticipation that the band would be returning to the no-nonsense, infectious thrashing present on their formative displays of power, but the best I can really say for this record is that the band had gone 'green' again, whipped up a pretty sweet icon for Chaly which would look good spray-painted on any vehicle or guitar case, and taken I Hear Black out to the back alley and put it out of its misery. A proper mercy killing.

In spirit, W.F.O. definitely falls in line with earlier records like Taking Over and Under the Influence, but the music is unfortunately not up to snuff with earlier compositions. This is often considered another album in their 'groove metal' phase, but for the most part that just manifests in similar, rock-fueled riffs delivered at a meaty, thrashing pace. It's definitely pretty 'street' and tough guy, and one still draws the impression that the band were beefing themselves up to perform in a world alongside dominant 90s groove and nu-thrash staples like Machine Head or Pantera, but I'd hardly consider this as lame or offensive as Sepultura's Roots or similar tripe. W.F.O. consists primarily of straight thrashing tracks redolent of 1988-mid 90s' Anthrax, with a few hints of Metallica's percussive riffing circa Master of Puppets or ...And Justice For All. The riffs are admittedly quite simplistic throughout the track list, but in all honesty there are moments which, in retrospect, deliver all the charm and power of more modern, popular 'comeback' albums like Ironbound.

This was the second full-length with this particular lineup, and you could feel the confidence grow over the rather timid and uninspired I Hear Black. The riffs punch harder, with some more surgical riffing cutting through the rhythm guitars in cuts like "They Eat Their Young" or "Bastard Nation", and a bit of the band's punk influence is recaptured with the driving "Supersonic Hate". D.D. Verni's tone is officious in this mix, so puerile and prominent that it often distracts from the guitar with its very Anthrax-like pacing, and there is more than one point on this recording where I felt like I had been catapulted into State of Euphoria, with the often enthusiastic impetus in the note progressions. The drums feel polished but a little dry, there isn't much depth created through the fills and the kick and snare really needed some more power or reverb. As for Blitz, he's pretty charming here as usual, that beady, arsonist gleam in his eye translating to each scream and chorus, but I wouldn't say this is one of his more memorable performances. Explosive, not enduring.

I was somewhat worried that Overkill were going to just go all out bluesy-metal here and continue to draw heavily upon the Sabbath influence they've expressed in the past, so I was happily surprised that this was for the most part pretty upbeat. There are some slower grooves, often created by Verni's bobbing brickwork rhythms, but they almost always pick up the pace to better reflect the album's title. Thrash was quite the dead scene in 1994, a few stalwarts pressing on but the rest having transformed for the current market, so I can hardly fault the New Jersey/Yorkers for keeping it real. The problem is that this music feels like a sheet of bubble wrap. Fun to pop for 5-10 minutes, but the attention is quickly drawn elsewhere. None of the immortal craftsmanship of Under the Influence of Taking Over. No standout riffs or leads, just blue collar, functional bruising. At the same time, none of the tracks are exactly shit either: I could live without the banal acoustic interlude "R.I.P. (Undone)" or the 'hidden' cover jam at the end, but the core selection of songs stick with the program, though this program hardly reaps in a higher Nielsen rating.

Verdict: Indifference [5.75/10] (with thoughts fixed upon the fix)

http://wreckingcrew.com/Ironbound/