Overkill - I Hear Black (1993)

There seems to be a fairly overt consensus among thrashers on I Hear Black as the official shark jumping of New Yorkers Overkill, but I have to admit I had a slightly differing perspective, already feeling diminishing returns from their music since about 1988. True, there were a few tracks here or there that kept my blood boiled in anticipation for whatever they'd issue next, but Horrorscope ground me to a dead stop, and naturally, with so much of my beloved sub-genre disintegrating through the 90s, I had little expectations for Overkill's future. I Hear Black, the sixth full-length, was one I acquired as part of one of those mail order music club deals, a dozen CDs for a penny or something like that, so I hardly felt burned by its lack of much redeeming, but this is one case where I must defer to the majority: Overkill really dropped the ball this time, and even if I found its next eldest sibling a disappointment, this was worse by several orders of magnitude.

The production is partly to blame. Though they were reuniting with Alex Perialas, who handled some of the band's best albums, I Hear Black comes off dry, dull and lifeless, similar to some of Flotsam & Jetsam's output in the 90s; as if there were some earnest attempt to deliver the band in some sort of stable cubicle/studio sterility to ramp up their chances with the masses that had already fled thrash metal to grunge, alternative and gangsta rap. The guitars, while clean and surgical in their execution, have little staying power, and while Verni's bass flutters along with its ritual, ear rupturing celerity, it seems to follow along with the guitar lines too closely. The band's next drummer, Tim Mallare had joined the fold here, and while he does a respectable job with some decent crashing and thumping, he does not have all that much to work with as far as the songwriting. As for the vocals, Blitz is still quite himself, though they experiment more with multi-tracking, panning effects and other techniques to layer complexity into the music (as in "Just Like You" or "Dreaming in Columbian"), where they should have been working more on making the riffs and choruses stick.

This catches a lot of flak for its 'groove' elements, but let's be clear: there is nothing wrong with a band going down this route if the music is well-written. A lot of great metal albums of any decade include 'grooves' to them, so the fact that this trait has in retrospect become such a pariah of the scene is perplexing to me. In I Hear Black, most of these aspects take on the form of post-Hendrix/Zeppelin rock and roll redolent of what you'd heard from Pantera, Corrosion of Conformity or Black Label Society in this decade. With songs like "Undying", this sort of pacing provides a skeletal structure to which they attempt to add atmosphere by screaming the chorus, and it just doesn't work because the riffing sequences are banal and uninspired. Where a band like Sabbath or Trouble crushed you with its colossal curvature, Overkill has always come across as wimpy when exploring this territory, from the dull earlier "Skullkrusher" to the misfires here like "Spiritual Void" or "Ignorance and Innocence". This album needed speed and excitement, but what manifests is sluggish or mid-paced disinterest...

There are a few points where they attempt to concoct a more clinical, creative and progressive brand of thrash as in "World of Hurt" or "Dreaming in Columbian", but even these are infested with weak arsed riffs that one must struggle to retain in the brain 5-10 minutes after one experiences them. "Shades of Grey" is a trivial power ballad which mutates from cleaner guitars to vapid grooves, and no amount of layered vocal harmonizing is going to save it. The flanged, bass-driven instrumental "Ghost Dance" with its sparse chords and backing drum thump is completely ineffective, and ultimately there is not a single song on the whole of the record that can stand toe to toe with anything on the band's list of staple/classics. I don't think Verni and Blitz were completely compromising the band here, since it was a pretty direct line from its predecessors, but any notion of the album's 'expansiveness' is fully counteracted by its flaws, and while this is not so colossal a misstep as something like Diabolus in Musica or Load, both of which came later, I have no problem identifying I Hear Black as the nadir in Overkill's career. The 'orange and black' attack just wasn't working out for anyone.

Verdict: Fail [4.5/10] (it has no mercy)

http://wreckingcrew.com/Ironbound/

Unconsecrated - Awakening in the Cemetery Grave (2012)

Awakening in the Cemetery Grave is a comprehensive collection of both Unconsecrated demos that were released together in 2008 as a full-length, and the band's 2010 EP Slave to the Grave, so for many new to the Spaniards, it would prove a decisive entry into their universe of Swedish nostalgia, a completeness and convenience you've got to admire. Over 73 minutes of material, including an appropriate cover of "Dead Forever" from their undoubted influences Unleashed, and I have to say I rather like the band's simplistic undead artwork aesthetics, both on this release and the constituent demos and EPs. Classy, effective, and leaving no vagaries to the prospective audience about what this band does, and what they are getting into.

Where Unconsecrated becomes a more difficult sell is in its blatant lack of novelty, since there are scores if not hundreds of European bands plying the same late 80s/early 90s Swedish terrain with little reinvention of its intrinsic elements, the familiar crunch of the guitar tone and the moody atmosphere created through the contrast of such thick rhythm guitars, forceful but hollow gutturals and eerie lead sequences. I suppose the most direct correlation would be to Entombed, a hybrid of Left Hand Path and Clandestine in particular, with the Slave to the Grave materials like "Buried in the Crypt" sounding closest to the latter. Of course we could bring in parallels to Dismember, Grave and Unleashed, but the phrasing of the chord sequences most reminded me of the pervasive sense of evil found on aforementioned albums. The one difference might be the vocals, which have a more distinctly downcast brutality to them; and also, when we travel back a little further with the 2008 demos, they seem to have adopted a more decidedly more old school Floridian flair to the writing with more tremolo work and riff-writing akin to early Obituary, Autopsy and Death.

In other words, Awakening in the Cemetery Grave is not shy about revealing this group's points of transition where certain influences began to override others. It helps that the production here is almost unanimously clear and compact without bordering on over-polish. The earlier demo recordings have a drier tone to them, while the EP seems more slavish and saturated to the massive guitars. This band is also quite good at coordinating its intro and instrumental sequences, using a lot of choirs, symphonic touches and even beautiful and exquisite acoustic guitar passages ("Breath of Desolation"). Their instrumentation is competent all around, even if it never breaks beyond the bounds of its niche or attempts to incorporate added levels of complexity in the composition of the guitars. Granted, the riffs never quite feel essential nor as memorable as the albums that no doubt influenced Unconsecrated, but surely if you're just in the mood for more of what you are used to then it should suffice.

And that's really the point that will make or break this release in the eyes and ears of many death metal fans: can you stay up night after night experiencing the same slasher or zombie horror film plots and still enjoy them? Do you still get excited at the very notion of albums like Clandestine, Indecent & Obscene, Slowly We Rot, Where No Life Dwells, Severed Survival and Into the Grave? If the answer is yes, then it might be hard to find any substantial fault with Unconsecrated. They're fluent in the this cornerstone of the genre, they provoke the atmosphere of the past, the lyrics are decent, and the writing is varied enough that they don't continuously bleat out the same rhythms ad infinitum. I didn't personally get as much out of the songs here as I have from the classics, or even from a number of other contemporary necromancers mining the style's burial grounds, but the Spaniards aren't bad, and at least they and the label are giving you a good deal.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10]

http://www.myspace.com/unconsecrated

Overkill - Horrorscope (1991)

As I was preparing these past few weeks to forge through my Overkill CD collection chronologically, it dawned on me that The Years of Decay was some sort of psychic cut-off point, and that its successor Horrorscope was the first of the band's studio full-lengths that I really struggled to remember, a trait that effectively mirrors the quality of the songwriting here. It's not that this is a 'bad' effort, by any means, but apart from the flaming orange mutation of the logo and the Edgar Winter cover ("Frankenstein"), this has always struck me as a painfully average thrash record which fails to provide the incendiary architecture of the band's biggest hits. Granted, I felt that they were on a steady if slight decline for the few records leading to this from Taking Over, but even then there were songs like "Elimination" and "Hello the Gutter" which stood out. When asked to name an equivocal piece on Horrorscope, I'm afraid I draw blanks, even after revisiting the album several times...

It may or may not have something to do with the fact that this is the first post-Gustafson Overkill album, the band's formative and formidable axeman having left the group in 1990 due to tension in the ranks (there are various sides to the story). Apparently D.D. Verni and Bobby Ellsworth had been pining for years to bulk up to two guitar players, so here was their opportunity, recruiting Rob Cannavino and Merritt Gant, two guys that seemed to have visualized out of thin air, but fit Overkill's modus operandi accordingly with taut and blistering rhythm and lead techniques. In fact, the one aspect in which I feel Horrorscope does actually dominate its predecessor is in the sheer production, which for me seems a little less over polished while retaining the punch and modernity the band were teasing with Years. Quite probably the byproduct of working with Terry Date this time out instead of Alex Perialas. The drums still feel aggressive, snappy and clean, Falck matching his prior performances, but the vocals, bass and guitar seem to be better unified into one pulverizing whole, and the album benefits from its explosive balance.

Unfortunately, so many of the songs here fail to provoke the same violent and impish nature of their forebears from Taking Over and Feel the Fire. The style here is still largely speed/thrash, with a few passing nods to the doom they had flirted with on "The Answer" or "Skullkrusher", so they deserve some credit for keeping it real when even Metallica was starting to shift climates with The Black Album, but this doesn't necessarily translate into quality riffs and vocal lines, both of which are absent from the majority of Horrorscope. It might just be that I'm not feeling D.D. Verni's writing. Both the production and business of the guitar riffs in songs like "Blood Money" felt somewhat similar to Pantera's seminal Cowboys from Hell. The obviously horror influenced intros a song like "Bare Bones" (with the piano) felt like bland John Carpenter worship, while the clean guitar that leads off the album on "Coma" reminds me of Anthrax for some reason.

The band wasn't lacking for pure headbanging frills here. "Blood Money", "Thanks for Nothing" and "New Machine" all scratch that itch to some extent, while tunes like "Nice Day...for a Funeral" or the escalating power ballad "Soulitude" have slower, moodier moments which maintain the level of variation from The Years of Decay. But nothing sticks. The vocal lines don't seem nearly as scathing or interestingly pitched as on prior efforts, and the leads all zip into one ear and out another faster than I can remember them. I thought the "Frankenstein" cover was burning and robust enough to do the original service, but then it's little more than a metal injection to an already rocking song, and thus the aggression doesn't even feel all that dialed up even with the chugging mid-paced thrash break that arrives after the first groove sequence.

All told, it's hard not to feel my old 'curse of 1991' pervade this album as it did for many others that seem to be universally well-regarded but personally uninteresting, like Arise, Human or Blessed Are the Sick, all of which likewise hailed from bands whose prior output I had loved. A curious phenomena which I've gone back to debunk and examine for decades, only to end up reinforcing my underwhelmed reaction. There's nothing inherently terrible about Horroscope, it's a competent and dynamic enough successor to The Years of Decay, but it seems further molded towards mediocrity, and there just aren't any exciting rhythm guitars or chorus bits that inspire the violence inside me as "Rotten to the Core", "Fatal if Swallowed" or "Electro-Violence" always have. Yes, it's 'mature', and well produced, but neither is necessarily a mandate where it concerns myself and Overkill. 

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10] (standing in the middle of nowhere)

http://wreckingcrew.com/Ironbound/

Nordland - Nordland (2011)

As one who is not particularly enamored of stewing in his own sweat during the pestilent, persistent heat of summer months, I have to thank those labels and bands who seek to alleviate my suffering with a cold and ready blast of cruelty and desolation to herald the salvation granted me by the climes of autumn and fall. It's not that I'm an especially 'grim' guy, by any means, but I like to watch my own breath in the air. It's in the blood. I am not a beach person. So, to this list of seasonal saviors I must now add the English project Nordland, for one of the more haunted and grievous eponymous albums I've heard of late, rendered all the more impressive by the fact that it's the product of a single musician, Vorh, who handles all vocals and instrumentation.

Not a novel feat within this genre, perhaps, but Vorh has an appreciable ability to wreak gray emptiness upon the listener without any threat of excess warmth or happiness invading a composition. However, this is not constructed through any lack of variation or atmosphere, and these traits are crucial in breaking up the longer duration of tunes like "Vorscara" or "Nordland" which are well over ten minutes in length. He'll transition from standard Immortal/Enslaved tremolo riffing to slower, charnel grooves circa late 80s Bathory, to even sparser sequences of droning, spacious chords that resonate against the natural or synthetic ambiance in the background. As a result, the 60+ minutes of the album move more confidently than one might dread. You won't experience long passages of mind-numbing repetition here, the dynamics are constantly in flux. From the more driving and depressive vice of the chords in "Morth" to the drifting clean guitars that inaugurate "Lords of the Great Dwelling", there is almost no means of predicting what precisely will happen next.

But my accolades can't end there, because Nordland also sounds extravagant, with a production that does not shy away from richness in favor of seeming excessively 'basement' or raw. Full, pulverizing distorted bass lines thunder below the vortices of soul-leeching guitars. The drums sound great, with a full willingness to meddle with tempo tropes, like blasting beneath slower chord patterns. I also like that Vorh baits you along with the promise of some grand, atmospheric climax lurking in the depths of the more standard riffing fare: you always know it's out there, waiting its turn. That said, these passages also serve to overshadow some of the moments leading up to them. Individually, a lot of the pure black metal riffs could use some added notation to make them more interesting. They function as carving knives when one is in the moment, but they don't always cut deeply into the memory. Also, Vorh's thick blackened rasp skirts monotony for a good portion of the album; he does mix it up occasionally, but the further torment of shifted screams and howls might have worked wonders over the crushing despair of the instruments.

Ultimately, though, Nordland is an effective foray into atmospheric antiquity and human suffering, which is about as cold as you'd expect when looking upon either of its covers. Perfect it is not, but neither is it ever cheap or shallow. There is a depth here that warrants further development. If Vorh has shown this much competence in only the first recording, then who knows what the future might hold? The album, originally self-released in 2011, has recently gotten an official reissue through Glorious North, and deservedly so. I would recommend this for those seeking varied and textured Scandinavian-style black metal or simply an escape from the tyranny of the sun.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10] (a king of many faces)

http://www.nordland.org.uk/home

Overkill - The Years of Decay (1989)

Though I used to love the title of Overkill's fourth record when it was first released, and bought it day one at the mall, it's difficult not to look back at is as eerily prophetic of the material they'd excrete over the ensuing decades. Not that the New Yorkers ever stumbled as hard as the more popular Californian speed/thrash royalty like Metallica, Slayer and Megadeth, but there was this span of decades where the band was just not capitalizing on the promise of the first few albums, and it became a tiresome process to behold, especially when one compares it to their generally electrifying live gigs that have always been a pleasure to experience. For studio records, usually you could rely on about 1-2 decent tracks at most, and the rest to creep in and out of your memory like the sewer water Chaly was vaporizing on Under the Influence.

The Years of Decay was still a decent album, though, arriving right around the climax of the thrash genre (though some would argue it was years earlier than 1989), but it was sadly outclassed by a large swath of the field. The production here threw up a few red flags for me immediately, sounding even more constipated, sterile and processed than even Under the Influence had. Sure, the album LOOKS good, a leering and classy interpretation of their mascot character (and far from the last), but audibly it's inconsistent. The punchy tone applied to the guitars might seem adequate for neck jerking and moshing, but its very quickly outshone by the screaming of the vocals or the dextrous and popping bass lines, so that when a truly standout riff comes along like the clinical and chilling pre-verse pattern of "Nothing to Die For", I would always wonder why so many of the other tunes fell short. Granted, Overkill was a major label band trying with no qualms about modernizing itself, but there were quite a number of dull riffs throughout The Years of Decay which left a lot of the weight of its success on the shoulders of Bobby Blitz.

At the same time, this was an album where they felt comfortable enough to 'experiment' a little further than they had in the past. Thus the incorporation of tunes like the titular power ballad, featuring entire acoustic guitar verses and Blitz showing us his woozy emotional range (which admittedly isn't bad); or the entirely too dull Sabbath-doom opening moments of "Playing With Spiders/Skullkrusher", boasting one of the most boring and generic riffs you could have asked for in that particular niche, and a pretty lame and predictable bluesy/doom flow to the lyrics. Not the first time the band would play around in that particular sandbox, and they would again at least a dozen times on later efforts, but I must say that Overkill have never been very good at it. This group shines when they're rifling along at an energetic speed and Blitz is spitting vitriol at a thousand miles an hour, not when trudging along with effortless slow riffs that any awful bar band could conceive of in roughly 2 minutes. Fuck that noise. And while I admire that Blitz found a proving grounds here to flex his pipes towards a grand climax, "The Years of Decay" is littered with weak leads and wimpy metal riff patterns that don't really deserve the eventual chorus.

All this becomes dreadfully apparent at the presence of a song like "Elimination", which was precisely the Overkill I wanted! Thuggish testosterone riffing, freak ass lyrical patterns that fire off like psychotic ballistics and sound like they were amazingly fun to lay down in the studio, and a chorus that almost every other track on this record only wishes it could match. "I Hate" is another entertaining piece with lyrics a lot of thrashers could relate to, with a nice Maiden-esque intro riff, and then a heavy punk influence in the chorus riff and bridge, so it's no surprise to me that these are the most remembered here. Another song I quite enjoyed here was "E.vil N.ever D.ies", its charging and chugging guitars sounding like the bastard children of Master of Puppets, but also some great and ominous bass lines, spooky guitar melodies and a great chorus (recanting the once-clever title) overcome some of the weaker riffs. Otherwise, songs like "Birth of Tension" and "Time to Kill" have some nice ideas but just aren't consistently well written, and "Who Tends the Fire" could join "Skullkrusher" and the title track on the pyre for all I care (a fairly sizable, almost 30 minute chunk of the album).

A friend once summed this record up as 'The Black Album' of Overkill, but I think that honor is better bestowed on one of the later 90s works. This is more or less 50% pure thrashing abandon in the vein of its predecessor, with a few stabs at some dynamic variation. Some people truly love it, and it makes sense that the group would wanna send out some feelers into other terrain and broaden the baseline songwriting, I only wish they had done a better job of it, and the aural aesthetics of the CD have never sounded good to me in headphones, car speakers, stereo. That aside, it's not without some strong points. For one, I think Falck's drumming here was a step above Under the Influence, and I would be lying to deny that a few of their best songs exist in "I Hate" and "Elimination", anthems that stand alongside "Rotten to the Core", "Wrecking Crew" and "Hello from the Gutter" as iconic. Was definitely the last 'good' Overkill for some time, but it's never been a personal favorite of mine and I struggle to listen through the whole of it almost 20+ years later.

Verdict: Win [7.25/10] (blowin' all the cornstalks down)

http://wreckingcrew.com/Ironbound/

Overkill - Under the Influence (1988)

Barring the arguable importance of any of their stylistic 'comebacks' later in history, Under the Influence was perhaps the most important album in Overkill's career, the 'make or break' moment where they had ridden in on two fairly spectacular recordings, already had a deal with one of the larger US majors, and needed to start churning out the hits that might place them in league with any of the 'big four' thrash bands who were selling hotcakes (though many would say the East Coasters deserve a quarter of that accolade themselves) and inspiring generations of heshers. So it's sad to say that, while strong, this was somewhat of a disappointment for me. After Taking Over, I expected only the world, but what I got was the sewer. A charming sewer, granted, and one that would introduce us formally to the group's long-term horned, batwinged skull mascot, but like Chaly, who we all wanted very badly to incinerate that douchebag on the cover, it comes up slightly short of its mark.

I don't know if it's the result of the band rushing this out the door, or the transition to the new drummer Sid Falck, but something about the production here just never sat quite right with me. It's not 'bad', mind you, but I felt like the bass was often a little too pluggy and the vocals didn't seem quite so forceful or confident as they had on the first two albums, occasionally too distant from the other instruments the mix. The band was once again working with Alex Perialas, who helmed Taking Over and also did some of the engineering on the debut, but this album doesn't seem as balanced and level as its predecessor. That aside, the guitars, drums and vocals are all clear and distinct enough for you to enjoy them individually, and the riffs are meaty and hammering enough to stir up a mosh pit and get the band their first major video airplay with "Hello to the Gutter", which feels like melodic Van Halen hard rock riffing diffused into punk restlessness and grating but unforgettable vocals. The drums feel like standard muscular rocking, which suits this tune in particular, but the salient chorus provides the song's salvation, and it's no wonder this became a fixture for gigs and another fan anthem in line with "Wrecking Crew".

There's not quite so much depth here as there was with Taking Over, but apart from "Hello..." you're treated to a handful of staples like the petulent "Shred", which opens the record with some of the band's fastest and most aggressive riffing to its day, only to transition into a bouncy fist-baller redolent of the material Anthrax or M.O.D. were writing at this same time. Or "Mad God World", with its treacherous grooves and lunatic chorus, and "Brainfade", with some sticky and interesting guitar progressions. It's the latter half of Under the Influence that fires off a few blanks. There is plenty of variation to be had, between some of the clean and tinny guitar intros, surgical riffs, and chunky mid-paced crowd pleasing, but songs like "End of the Line" seemed inconsistent, each measuring off some solid mosh rhythms with zipping leads and vocal patterns that never completely hooked me on the line. It's still an album I can listen to in completion, thanks to the pacing, charismatic lyrics and nostalgic appeal, but my enjoyment is not distributed evenly throughout.

Of course, sized up against a lot of the average American thrash choking up the record shelves of the late 80s, Under the Influence was still good enough to keep the band hovering in the average metalian's radar. I remember coming away from this with a similar impression that I got from State of Euphoria or ...And Justice For All: that the album felt mildly overproduced, and that it's modern compunctions lent too much of a sterile, plastic wrapping to what otherwise might have proven poignant songwriting. Compared with the more ripping, raw force of records like Razor's Violent Restitution or Tankard's The Morning After, or the dry, disturbing emanations off Slayer's South of Heaven, Under the Influence seemed somewhat 'assembly line', a series of mosh anthems akin to late 80s Anthrax or Zetro era Exodus which were hammy and fun rather than soul searing, belligerent excess. Not necessarily a negative in this case, since a number of the songs are strong and memorable enough to have earned a stable spot in the band's set lists; but while Under the Influence is still worth owning for any Overkill fan, and admittedly superior to anything the band has produced since, I could sense even in my teens that some thrashing summit had been reached, and this was the band coming down the far side of the hill, back to the city and their day jobs.

Verdict: Win [8/10] (signed on for life into submission)

http://wreckingcrew.com/Ironbound/

Visigoth - Final Spell EP (2012)

Salt Lake City is not the first place that comes to mind when one thinks of melodic heavy metal, so it's no shocker that Visigoth carry a more European feel to their songwriting on the Final Spell EP, a follow-up to their 2010 demo. In particular, as I was listening through its four tracks, I was picking up a distinctly Swedish vibe reminiscent of Dream Evil, HammerFall, Nocturnal Rites, The Storyteller or Heed. This is largely in part to the incredibly polished vocal production, but also the songwriting itself which relies heavy on traditional, simpler riffing patterns skirted with glorious threads of melody. The structure is certainly redolent of prototype power metal acts like Accept, Running Wild ("Call of the Road"), Judas Priest or the Dio solo records of the 90s, but the band is fortunate not to draw upon any one influence too closely, and their geographical placement incurs a sense of novelty.

The caveat is that Visigoth create a more modern aural context to their music than merely aping the decades past, and this is manifest primarily through the meat of the guitar tone. Most of the songs here are played at a mid gait, with lots of chugging balanced against the more melodic chords and lead lines; the band just settles into the rocking and lets Jake Rogers build atmosphere through the vocal textures, which are smooth and boldly mixed to the point that they almost drown out some of the guitars during the huge harmonies. What's amusing is that this is the same guy behind the black metal group Gallowbraid. He's obviously a long way from the retching and snarling we experienced there, but to his credit he's got a very seasoned, professional timbre that you'd expect from more storied singers. If I had any problems vocally, it had less to do with his ability and more to do with the lack of aggression. He doesn't scream, he doesn't necessarily wrench a lot of character from his chosen range; there are certainly emotions at work, and the chorus sequences are clear, accessible, and easy for crowds to sing along with, but I, for one, would not mind if he got a little angrier.

Otherwise, this is a pretty on-point demo. Visigoth knows its audience. All of the songs hover at around the same 5+ minute range, and the riffs are kept busy enough that they eschew the sense of ennui the standard, hard rock four note configurations that plague a lot of the lower-intensity heavy/power hybrids. Songs like "Final Spell" and "Creature of Desire" might seem slightly predictable, but they fill the space with speed metal licks, taut and effective leads, and the Rock'n'Rolf temerity of the rhythm guitars definitely makes me wish I were licensed to drive a motorcycle. I also like the moodier breakdowns with cleaner guitars which lent a Maiden-esque dynamic (as in "Final Spell"). The one track of the four I struggled with the most was "Seven Golden Ships". It opens with a large, chugging guitar passage but sort of peters out in intensity, until the burst of speed and melody in the bridge which is possibly one of the most sticky rhythms among the 22 minutes of material, but stylistically it remained consistent with its neighbors.

Lyrically, there might be of the few of the familiar post-Manowar cliches, but usually this is not a problem for most of the fan base of this genre, and who am I kidding? When you include lines like 'titanic war machine' I'm hardly one to complain. Some might scoff at the cover art, but I rather dig the simplicity, as a huge admirer of old sword & sorcery fiction and comic book art. No, probably the only serious setbacks for me was that it often felt a little too passive or paint-by-numbers, and the vocals were a fraction loud. I want this band to do unto me like the Germanic tribe it was name for did to the Roman troops at Adrianople, so it wouldn't hurt to ramp up the savagery, something that will undoubtedly manifest with the extended variation of a longer form recording. Beyond that, though, Final Spell is a coherent, neat sounding, and above all professional sampler with a fluid rhythm section, chops and melodies aplenty, and not so stuck in the trail of its influences that it can't pull its boots out of the muck and forge ahead on its own path.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

http://www.facebook.com/visigothofficial

Overkill - Taking Over (1987)

The second and last of Overkill's studio full-lengths to feature the band posing on the cover, a duty that would be handed off to someone, or 'something' for the followup Under the Influence, Taking Over leers at you with the promise of your own bullet ridden carcass. Let's be honest, these guys weren't just showing off their great looks. A few of them might have been sporting some spiffy perms, but they weren't exactly pretty boys. Feel the Fire revealed their silhouettes against the burning backdrop, and with Taking Over they're about to catch you in a four barrel crossfire. The threat was real, and these guys looked dirty and driven enough to enforce their sonic obliteration. Coincidentally, that is EXACTLY what transpires upon this sophomore, which to me remains the best individual album in their decades-spanning canon, and the iconic Overkill experience which has yet to be rivaled or reproduced by anything that would follow it.

Taking Over doesn't just revisit the manic personality of its predecessor, it pours a bucket of concrete over it with a more forceful, muscular guitar tone that gives Bobby's vocals a run for their money. The riffs on this thing are ungodly excellent, an aural matrix of brutal thrash redolent of what bands like Metallica were doing on their seminal Ride the Lightning or Master of Puppets, only dowsed in East Coast gasoline and Ellsworth's impetuous screeching and pavement-preaching. In fact, Gustafson sounds so much stronger on this record that it feels like Blitz had to rely more on his higher pitched, howling delivery just to remain at the helm of this vessel. You've also got a tighter, intense performance from drummer Rat Skates, and while the increased tenacity of the six strings might serve to shove Verni's bass lines to the peripheral, he's still in there hammering away like a human piledriver. Like Master of Puppets, I've often found that the production of the album receives a few quips and complaints, but I'd have it no other way, because it truly helps capture that moment when the thrash niche was becoming more clinical, complex and hostile.

If I had to draft a 'top 10' list of Overkill tunes throughout the years, then I think it says a lot that at least six or seven of them would be lifted from Taking Over. It's really THAT good, and in fact I would have no qualms about naming it the top East Coast USA thrash record of all time, edging out other beloved beatings like Survive, Among the Living and Persistence of Time. It opens with a melodic escalation you simply don't expect in "Deny the Cross", accompanied by thudding war drums and masterful, minimal chugging that transition beautifully into the monolithic machine gun rhythm guitars while Blitz ruins your world with every murderous line of lyrics! The breakdown riff is fully gladiatorial with its thin, melodic underpinning and massive chords, the leads strange but superb, and the chorus (featuring a good gang shout) is among the most sticky of the 80s in this genre.

Other top flight tracks include the catchy punk-buster "Wrecking Crew", which would become the moniker for the band's fan club; "Fatal if Swallowed", which was drafted forward from the original Overkill EP with far superior production and atmosphere; "In Union We Stand", a mid-paced anthem with excellent pacing and roiling chugs through the verses; "Use Your Head", which like so many other pieces on this album, is an instant catalyst for reckless, moshing release; and "Powersurge", motherfucking ditto. But my favorite here is most likely "Electro-Violence", incendiary and intense (courting a lot of "Ride the Lightning" influence) with a chorus breakdown riff that should have replaced the S.O.D. theme on Headbanger's Ball. I'm talking to YOU, Kevin Seal, Adam Curry and Riki Rachtman. I know you're reading this! Simply put, this tune is one of those defining, unforgettable East Coast staples like a "Brainwashed" or "I Am the Law". If you don't like it, marker up those patches, dump your denim and hi-tops in the nearest trash can and go stuff yourself in a cubicle and listen to Katy Perry. License to be cool revoked!

The only song here I don't love, which frankly holds Taking Over back from the precipice of perfection, is the closer "Overkill 2 (The Nightmare)". I appreciate they were trying to follow up the eponymous horror themed track from the debut; to build their own 'franchise' like Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street (both of which turned out pretty goddamn awful themselves), but it's all too to rare that I feel it's spooky siren call. There are some nice techniques here, like the creepy bass of the intro and the little three-note melody sprung off the guitar line in the verse (to mimic the incidental horror scores of the period), but as a whole it's just not as lethal and efficient as all the (shorter) tunes leading up to it. That said, for the ninth man on your bench of nine, it's dependable enough to dunk a few severed heads into baskets.

'Taking Over'. No, they were not kidding, and through the years this album has transformed into one of my favorites of 1987, alongside other mighty thrashers like Killing Technology, Terrible Certainty, The Ultra- Violence, and the comparably vicious Finished With the Dogs. An irascible, unshakable paragon of punishing personality that the band just haven't been able to match in the ensuing decades. Gods know they've tried, but while Under the Influence and The Years of Decay had a few aces in the deck, and the more recent records like Ironbound have seen a streak of youthful energy permeate their weary ligaments, there is just no comparison on a song for song basis. Own it. Love it. Fear it. Own it again, for your little sister and brother. Buy your dog a copy. You have the technology. You just need soldiers. Remove your antenna, and then play it in the car when you've trapped your friends, until they too submit to the green and black, neck straining attack.

Verdict: Epic Win [9.5/10] (this only happens every night)

http://wreckingcrew.com/Ironbound/

Overkill - Feel the Fire (1985)

Perhaps one of the most appropriate soundtracks for a preteen waiting for his balls to fully drop, Feel the Fire was mine own introduction into the realm of the New York/New Jersey's incendiary Overkill, and after 25 years of nearly constant annual touring and studio productivity, it remains one their most poignant and effective statements. And, strangely enough, not a day fucking older sounding than when I first listened to it. Granted, this wasn't a unique trait for the classic recordings of the 80s and their timeless, tireless, youthful vitality, but I'd also add that this might just be my favorite singular performance by Bobby 'Blitz' Ellsworth in the band's entire career. That's not to say that the 'whole package' here is necessarily a match for its more potent and menacing successor, yet even for its few flaws and inconsistencies, and the opinion that it slightly paled next to a share of other 1985 records, I've got little but fond memories of this full-length debut.

Where the East Coast was largely recognized for its prominent hardcore scene, from which many of the emergent thrash acts took a shovelful of influence, Overkill seemed to mirror early Anthrax in that they drew more heavily on a slew of NWOBHM influences like Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and Motörhead. I'm sure they rubbed elbows with a lot of punk and NYHC groups at gigs and by the virtue of their native geography. Clearly they enjoyed the stuff, since several of them came from underground punk groups and their stage names were often tributes to that field. They also included a cover of the Dead Boys' "Sonic Reducer" as a finale, but rarely on this album do I feel like the influence leaves too much of an imprint. Most of the chord progressions, triplets, and leads seem to be hail directly from across the pond, and while there's a bit of a hardcore surge behind a tune like "There's No Tomorrow", they don't integrate such aesthetics as consistently as, say, Nuclear Assault. Then again, the band's violent and inspirational lyrics and relative street savvy ensured that they could be taken seriously by either the longhairs or the skins, because they simply oozed the sort of urban unrest city dwellers could relate to.

Strangely enough, it wouldn't even matter all that much to me what most inspired the guitars, because despite the fact that Bobby Gustafson had some killer riffs and fun leads across the first four records, it is the vocals and bass that have always stood out to me as the most prevalent elements in Overkill's sound. Bobby 'Blitz' chews this terrain up like a hellfire-powered garden tiller, evincing more personality out of his performance than you'd hear out of a half dozen other singers. I suppose a baseline comparison might be drawn to Bruce Dickinson, in terms of the operatic angst in his mid register, but where the Iron Maiden front man always favored solid, climactic melodies, Ellsworth zips and zags like some passive/aggressive lunatic let off the leash at your local madhouse. He screams, he laughs, he mock the listener like some capricious, petulent imp that even the devil wanted nothing to do with, booting the critter on up to mortal purgatory. In any other situation besides an energetic explosion of thrash, you might wanna strangle Blitz, but in the context of Overkill it makes for genuine, enthusiastic entertainment.

In particular, I'd point out the scream near the end of "Raise the Dead" or the barks of "There's No Tomorrow", as examples of such unrestrained, feral inflection, but he's also pretty good at retching out these more melodic, unnerving lines as with "Kill at Command", and Overkill are no stranger to using backups, gang shouts and chants like a horde of thugs about to go at you with switchblades, broken bottles and spiked chains. Perhaps his most common technique is to instantly shift pitch within a line, like an agitated housewife having a meltdown on her significant other when he gets home from work. Add to this the volatile and unapologetic mesh of horror, street wisdom and domestic violence in the lyrics and you've got a beating you will not soon forget. The line in "Feel the Fire" where he shouts 'there's nothing I despite more...than a bitch!' gets me every time...chilling and hilarious in equal measure.

D. D. Verni also makes his mark on this thing with a clearly Steve Harris-inspired bevy of blunted bass lines which pop and bounce along at about the same level of power as the rhythm guitar. Similar to Dan Lilker, he ensured that his generally underestimated instrument would retain a voice in this niche, and it really adds a course and clamoring power to the proceedings (like the buzzing fills in "Feel the Fire" itself), even though this is not the best produced of their records. The guitar tone, admittedly, could have used some more meat on its bones, an issue I also have with the s/t EP, but when multiple tracks or leads are implemented it does seem to improve. In general, though, even where Gustafson mixes it up between surgical chugging patterns, chords and tempos, the riffs here are not one of the album's strongest points. They rule in a classic like "Rotten to the Core", "Second Son" and "Hammerhead", but elsewhere they feel like mere reconfigurations of the writing off earlier British records. That said, the processed distortion of the guitar, which reminds me also of early Savatage, at least feels fresh and punchy.

I could go either way on Rat Skates' drums here, which are solid, snappy and belligerent but occasionally a bit of a mess (like the intro fill before "Raise the Dead" kicks in, it just never sat well with me). Once the band gets rocking, he sounds fine, but I think they might have been mixed a little loudly throughout and the tom fills often detract from the guitars. In all, the production to this record doesn't evoke the same level of nostalgia in me that other dirtier speed/thrash records of this period did, like the Canadian trifecta of Razor (Executioner's Song), Exciter (Long Live the Loud) or Piledriver (Metal Inquisition) that also came out in 1985, but Feel the Fire is still pretty authentic and dark. I also like the touches of atmosphere the band incorporated to create a cheesy 80s horror miasma, like the percussion and heart beat leading off "Raise the Dead" or the 'creepy' riffing and wind that heralds the first chapter in their eponymous saga "Overkill".

All told, pretty great fucking record. I don't enjoy all the songs or individual riffs equally, but anchored by the storming and maniacal presence of Bobby 'Blitz', this is an album that spent several years in rotation in the tapedecks of myself and numerous friends. Personally, I prefer Taking Over for the more face ripping and explosive chorus sequences, not to mention the more muscular production and construction of the guitars, but I'd certainly take this over anything the band has released beyond the 80s. My attention was drawn more towards Hell Awaits, Bonded By Blood, and those Canadian speed metal records I mentioned above, not to mention Fates Warning's The Specter Within, quite possibly the greatest East Coast metal record of that decade, but Feel the Fire was wholly reliable to stir the blood and help induce puberty.

Verdict: Win [8.5/10] (laughing as you bleed)

http://wreckingcrew.com/Ironbound/

Overkill - Overkill EP (1984)

In retrospect, fate has not been the kindest to the original, eponymous Overkill EP released in 1984, but then one must recognize that it's no more than a demo recording later pressed as an 'official' issue. Three of the four tracks available here would be later recorded for the first two, classic full-length records, and the entire EP is reprinted on the !!!Fuck You!!! and Then Some compilation which came out in 1996. Tracking down an original copy of this thing is undoubtedly a dire prospect which is best reserved for wheelers, dealers and collectors, so most fans today  will have heard it alongside the 1988 Fuck You EP, and probably after they already heard the constituent tracks on Feel the Fire and Taking Over in all their brazen, hostile glory...

To put it into a proper perspective though, Overkill was admittedly a fairly bad ass introduction to one of the East Coast's longest enduring thrash bands. One of the East Coast's longest enduring metal bands, period. It features two of what I'd consider the group's greatest ever tracks in "Fatal if Swallowed" and "Rotten to the Core", and it arrived early enough in the scheme of its sub-genre's evolution that it certainly deserves a cult respect. That said, every time I come back to visit it, I can't help but feel my time would be better spent listening to the later recordings of the material. The group's youthful, hostile energy is coursing through all the important tunes, and it's no wonder why they were able to shortly pick up a deal through Megaforce and Atlantic; but the production, while still clear enough to deliver each riff and chorus with appreciable impact, leaves something to be desired. Not that Feel the Fire was all that amazing in this department, but the recordings of "Overkill" and "Rotten to the Core" there remain the 'default' renditions as far as it concerns my own listening habits.

Then there's the fact that "The Answer" is just not one of their best songs. It's a bloated, 9 minute 'epic' coursing along at a doomed pace, heavily inspired by Black Sabbath where the faster tracks cull more of a Judas Priest/Iron Maiden aesthetic gone street lethal. Many listeners in the late 80s, 90s or 'oughts always seemed to mention how the band would tear off into tangents involving more groove or doom elements, but in truth the band has always played this hand as both a tribute to one of its influences and to help vary the pacing of their records. "The Answer" is perhaps the early example of this, but despite the fact that Blitz' charismatic inflection lends itself well to the more ominous, sluggish walls of riffing, the actual architecture of the guitars is quite predictable and dull to carry 9 minutes. There's a pretty good reason this was left off the ensuing full-lengths, for at best it would have been mildly curious filler which wears out its welcome after about 2-3 minutes...

Elsewhere, though, the EP was certainly a cause for some excitement. The guitar tone is choppy and not quite as bold as I'd have liked, but then that wasn't destined to happen until Taking Over. Also I felt like there was a lot of nuance in the vocals on the later versions, where here he seems more shouty. The actual patterns are largely identical, and he pulls off some nice screams, but Feel the Fire is far stronger in terms of his delivery. And that's sort of how I feel about this recording in general. Important for its formative value, but easily supplanted by the full-lengths throughout the 80s, and "The Answer" providing the only tangible exclusivity here is hardly a boon, especially as it represents about a third of the content. However, if you're a total sucker for primitive recordings or you don't wish to acknowledge the existence of metal music beyond the mid-80s, I cannot say that Overkill's bound to disappoint you.

Verdict: Win [7/10] (driven by the host of hell)

http://wreckingcrew.com/Ironbound/