A Forest of Stars - A Shadowplay for Yesterdays (2012)

It's hard to fault a band like A Forest of Stars for anything, as they tackle such a broad and delicious vista of sound that the very ambition of the music alone is enough to inspire interest in where their journey will take them. Progressive, melancholic rock and folk influences are wound across bleak, tremolo picked melodic black metal sequences saturated with textures, and the vocalist is almost as charismatic as a Martin Walkyier if you took transferred him out out of his vicious black/thrash territory and placed him in a more spacious, solemn environment (in fact, several of the song titles reminded of Sabbat and Skyclad). The band experiments with its instrumentation, few songs ever sound quite the same and they paint both lush and leeching scenery across the fields, forests and streams of their native land that it's hard not to drown.

Having said that, I feel that there are still some components which don't entirely sell me on their sound. For example, their lengthier tracks, despite all the implementation of synthesizers, cleaner passages, or female vocals will often devolve into rather predictable patterns that no amount of atmosphere can overcome, and while I admire the poetry invested in some of the narrative vocals, like the gorgeous intro "Directionless Resurrection", I often felt like they were a distraction from some pretty fabulous music, and the male/female  duet vox (as in "Corvus Corona part 2" seem slightly disparate). Otherwise, the band are quite profound at absorbing the listener into varied climes, like the electronic-infused instrumental interlude "Man's Laughter" or the folksy eruption of sadness "Left Behind as Static", or the beautiful "Underside of Eden" which morphs from spikes of festive flute into distant, distant zephyr choirs and even passages of blasting and double bass. In fact, I'd be hard pressed to find a single song on this album which doesn't offer at least something compelling...

As for the production, A Shadowplay for Yesterdays is this admittedly level aural tapestry which invites the listener to pick out the individual instruments once all the band are firing simultaneously. There are points at which some of the guitar riffs feel drowned beneath the drums and the more atmospheric instrumentation, but really this gives more of an 'outdoors' impression, and a number of the riffs sit right on top of the mix when there isn't a lot else happening. The flutes, keys and acoustics all fit very well into the puzzle, and despite the wealth of instruments A Forest of Stars manage to unify everything into a cohesive, conceptual experience. Overall, I found the prior album The Opportunistic Thieves of Spring mildly more mesmerizing and interesting than this one, but the English band is clearly one of the most distinct in its field, and I hold out hope that it's only a matter of time before they reveal some genre-redefining masterpiece. They've all the tools and talent, I'm just waiting for a tastier array of guitar progressions equivocal to the lyrics and atmosphere.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10]

http://www.aforestofstars.co.uk/

Pharaoh & Canvas Solaris - Tribute to Coroner EP (2010)

The prospect of covering a Coroner track, especially from their creative zenith in 1988-1989 has to be a daunting one, if only for the sheer level of raw musicianship required to pull it off. Over 20 years later, most bands are STILL not playing at the level of the Swiss trio. Naturally, metal has become more extreme in the ensuing decades, and from a standpoint of sheer technical ability, bands are playing pretty damn fast and difficult compositions, but I've not heard a guitarist or bassist in as long who could match Ron Royce and Tommy T. Baron with their baroque infused, classical saturated complexity. Or at least none in that very specific, unique niche that has been abandoned since the band folded after the disappointing and dumbed down sound of Grin.

Granted, if you're going to try, US acts Pharaoh and Canvas Solaris are as good as any to throw to the wolves, but as this split proves, doing so and adding any embellishments to the originals is next to impossible. Each of these two groups plays their elected rendition fairly close to the Coroner cut, only with a modern, cleaned up production that I feel takes away from the oblique and overwhelming atmosphere of the original. Granted, in Pharaoh's case, "Tunnel of Pain" was pretty polished on No More Color, but the other feature, that of "Arc-Lite", sticking with Solaris' instrumental modus operandi, it seems to lack something. It seems that both outfits focus on playing the lead lines and melodies so straight that they never real make the songs 'their own', which is absolutely what I want out of a cover: an interpretation, where this is more of a fan love letter. Understandable, I suppose, since it's fucking Coroner, who were one of the best bands ever at their prime, but not prompting anyone to go out of their way to pick this up unless they wanna throw money at the constituent acts.

The one exception here is to experience Tim Aymar performing Ron's vocal lines with his airy screams, quite different than what I'm used to with the tune (though he barks a few of the lines at a lower, familiar pitch). It almost comes across like this had been a Realm song from around the same period, and as a result i favored this to the Canvas Solaris cover. Musically though, the interpretation plays it pretty safe, despite the quality of the guitarists involved they don't really rock the boat. I wouldn't say the production of either tune is up to snuff with the respective band's studio original works, but hell...if you're dropping a 7" tribute, there are worse libations one could choose from the backlog of 80s brilliance. And, to my knowledge, there is not exactly a surplus of Coroner worship laid to tape. I remember Sceptic from Poland doing a decent version of "Paralized, Mesmerized", but that was from Grin and therefore much simpler to pull off. Ultimately, this didn't impress me, but then it also doesn't dishonor the object of its affections.

Verdict: Indifference [5.5/10]

http://www.solarflight.net/
http://www.myspace.com/canvassolaris

Overkill - The Electric Age (2012)

The unexpected success of Overkill's 2010 album Ironbound placed the band in a rather precarious position. Essentially the first record in many years to generate such a positive wave of buzz for the band, it arrived at just the point where thrash had gone completely viral with a number of retro acts culling the sounds of the 80s into modern production standards. A whole new generation of thrasher was inspired to jump aboard the Chaly express, and at the same time, many fans of the groups first 4-5 records who had long since abandoned them to the middling groove experiments that were so dominant in the 90s finally felt they could return to that Overkill they fell in love with. Personally, as someone from the latter camp, I found Ironbound to be a decent record, if nowhere near so exemplary as many had painted it. The lethal, youthful energy seemed to have repossessed Jersey's finest, and the songs were easily as strong as Killbox 13 (the one other post-80s Overkill album I was borderline into) but precious few of the actual songs justified such lavish praise.

But would it prove a fluke for Bobby 'Blitz' Ellsworth and company? Would they achieve their 15 minutes once more, then sink back into another decade or so of relative mediocrity? From the sounds of the follow up, The Electric Age, I can proudly say not a chance in hell, because not only does this record reassert the groups charismatic volatility in spades, but the more I listen through this the more it sticks with me. In fact, I already like it more than Ironbound, and have no problem declaring it their best studio full-length since Under the Influence in 1988. Yes, better than The Years of Decay. Or Horroscope. Even in the very dregs of this album, like the petulant chugfest "Old Wounds, New Scars" or the more boogie metal infused "21st Century Man", the personality of Blitz alone is enough to carry what otherwise might feel like a less inspired set of riffs. The pacing throughout is violent and dependable, the riffs feral and bombastic even when they're not memorable, and at least a dozen times here, you feel as if you've been run over by the band's tour bus as it patrols the city streets stalking new venues to destroy.

This is by far the best guitar tone they've achieved in a great many years, with plenty of bite to it that drops out wisely for the ferocious, warped lead-work, and both the muscled staccato chords and palm mutes sound brazen, with as much current as Chaly's electric wings on the cover. There are a few grooves I found rather bland and empty here or there, like the breakdown in "Electric Rattlesnake", but in general songs like "Wish You Were Dead" and "All Over But the Shouting" take you straight back to the 'powersurge' of the 80s and they're propulsive enough to blow over anything that many of the band's peers from the Golden Age are producing lately (like Exodus, for example). The bass lines are superior to about eight albums leading up to this one, Verni gunning alongside the guitars without flagellating over himself like some would say he used to in the late 80s alongside Gustafson's writing; and Ron Lipnicki makes a strong account for himself here, laying into the kit with a fury his predecessors like Mallare and Rat Skates could only muster on their very best outings in the band's catalog.

All of this pales in comparison to Bobby mother fucking Blitz, who reinstates himself here as that guy you don't want to lock horns with in a dark alleyway. The self-reflective chorus lines in tracks like "Old Wounds, New Scars" (Got a lot of mouth for a Jersey white boy/beat the drum, now you've gone too far) or "Wish You Were Dead (got me spinning in circles/hanging by a thread/if I had one wish to use, I swear it/I wish you were dead) truly get the listener's blood stirring and prompted for a fist fight with whoever is available, something I just couldn't have said for an Immortalis or ReliXIV. In truth, this is probably the strongest of his performances outside Feel the Fire and Taking Over, he comes off slightly more edgy and aggravated than even Ironbound, and considering just how crucial his delivery is to the success of an Overkill album...it's money in the bank.

Despite all this praise, and its numerous overt strengths, The Electric Age still falls shy of greatness by a slim margin I'd largely attribute to the riffing, which is strong enough to support Blitz and maintain the gnashing, abusive fire under the album's ass, but not really all that distinct when broken down to individual patterns and progressions. Pacing and structure trump quality. There aren't any that I wanted to learn on my guitar once the smoke cleared. For fans old and new, it's likely money well spent, but while it's clearly got some replay power, I'm not sure how long it can endure, or if I'll care for songs like "Come and Get It" in another 3-5 years. The post-80s Overkill masterpiece still seems to elude me (though I realize I'm in the minority with all the gushing over Ironbound), but this certainly edges them in the proper direction, and there are least 30-40 minutes here of solid headbanging frenzy driven by THE VOICE.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10] (all God's children, there they go, taking the free ride)

http://wreckingcrew.com/Ironbound/

The Ash Eaters - Ibn Ghazi EP (2012)

Three clues that I'm going to be terrified by a recording: the inclusion of a quote from existential Argentinean author Jorge Luis Borges in the liner notes, a title with an obscure reference I might find in a Lovecraft story, and the involvement of Umesh Amtey, brainchild of the defunct Brown Jenkins, whose hypnotic swan song Death Obsession was a highlight of the year 2009. The Ibn Ghazi EP proves guilty of all three, and if you felt the pangs of irritating lightness beginning to infest the pulchritude of oblique horror you call a universe at the dissolution of Amtey's alma mater, rest assured that he and his new bandmates will absolve you of any sense of security you might have invested in these ensuing years.

The Ash Eaters certainly bridge a natural continuity with that earlier project, servitors of discordant and experimental black metal, but where Death Obsession war borne on structured wings of discordant hypnosis, I found the material here to be far more jarring, chaotic and clashing. The band is not very low-end heavy, and thus they pierce your ears with this resplendent madhouse of jangling, haunted notes that ring out over the occasionally more chugged, subtle rhythm textures and the highly dynamic drumming. Add to that the eerie, atonal chants of the longer of the EP's two constituent pieces, "These Are the Inhabitants of the Fire", and you've got yourself a sinister bedlam with which to lose sleep and frighten any sane person with the misfortune of your acquaintance, rooted somewhere in the treacherous soil of Burzum's Filosofem and other depressive works, then expanded outward to a broader, alien darkness.

As one might expect from prior exposure to Amtey's earlier recordings, this is not easy listening, an it nearly serves as a set piece for one's plummet into unraveling. The inclusion of the read-along, prayer-like lyrics only add to the sense of spectral desperation created through the corrosive (and largely instrumental) note progressions, and the higher pitch of the music allows it to quickly penetrate your conscience. In listening, I felt I was the victim in some cautionary, silent horror film, the shifting rhythms of the band queuing scenes of dread and climax. The one caveat is that between the two tracks, it's an admittedly short experience, just over 12 minutes in duration, and I feel like the cruel aesthetics of the project would suit a more substantial recording with further variation of mood and texture. That said, it is a download, and this is malevolent and effective artistry which proves there are still fertile soils from which to foment the stuff of black, surreal nightmare. Whether you're acclimated to Brown Jenkins and other tortured, dissonant post-black progeny, or you just hate God, you'll wish to take notice of this affront.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10]

http://theasheaters.bandcamp.com/

Detrimentum - Inhuman Disgrace (2011)

Though I'm a bit late to the party on this one, Detrimentum strikes me as truly an anomaly in today's death metal spectrum, a rare act that balances both its brutality and melodic sensibility on the head of a pin, and in turn provides such a depth of songwriting chops that it should possess an open appeal to a large cross-section of extreme metal fan. Most groups shoot for one or the other of these contrasts, but in listening through the sophomore Inhuman Disgrace, I experienced such an intense level of musicality and refinement over the tropes of harried, technical riffing, guttural verbosity and athletic foot and handwork that I must wonder: why this group is not spoken of in louder and wider circles? I must now add my voice to the choir in battling this gross negligence...

Morbid Angel would be an obvious point of reference here, since the band broaches that same level of intense, faster paced riffing and nuance for dynamic grooves, but in truth Detrimentum have an added accessibility they've drawn from a number of other influences. On the more extreme end of the writing, I hear traces of Suffocation and Cryptopsy, perhaps some of Pestilence's early, surgical thrashing, but the more melodic, solemn sheen that inaugurates "Effigies of the Silent Kings" reminds me of old Paradise Lost (of all bands!), and the lead sequences permeating tracks like "The Journeyman's Lament" hearken towards the inspiration of progressive death metal standards like 90s Death. In addition, they've got an inspirational to just rush the listener with an incredible breakout of catchiness as in the track "Dominus Detrimentum", while the vocals continue to bludgeon along, reminding you that this is not some breezy, spring afternoon in a field full of flowers. The level of variation through the sophomore is superb, no two songs will sound quite alike, and the musicianship is top notch.

These aren't just shallow, dime a dozen melodies other, but fusions of notation that fix quite nicely onto the intensity of the drumming, and where applicable, as in "The Crimson Legacy" intro, summon forth an acute atmosphere you're just not going to hear on the lion's share of death metal recordings of late. The mix of the record is pristine, you can pick out each instrumental instrument without the usual levels of saturated polish, and despite the brightness of the leads and harmonies, there's a pervasive balance of darkness. I do feel that the instruments rather outclass the inflection of the vocals, which are fairly average quality for the genre, but despite the fact that all of the album's constituent ingredients might themselves not feel unique, the way they gel into this seasoned, maturated 'total package' is admirable, and fewer death metal albums in recent years have been so damned well rounded. Even the lyrics are good. This star is clearly rising, its only obstacle in the level of exposure it can accumulate, and Inhuman Disgrace is well worth picking up.

Verdict: Win [8/10] (teeth chattering, forms flickering)

http://www.multigen.plus.com/Detrimentum/

Ectovoid - Fractured in the Timeless Abyss (2012)

Pretty much a textbook case for death metal nostalgia, Alabaman brutes Ectovoid will no doubt draw a lot of comparisons to the US pioneers Incantation, Immolation and Cianide in their use of stripped, authentic battering rhythm guitars and broad, ominous guttural vocals which create morbid, sepulchral atmospheres in contrast to the more harried riffing and eerie, breakout lead sequences. But where a lot of bands seek to drown this same set of influences in ridiculous levels of reverb to create an infinite, cavernous scope to the production, this trio deserves credit for allowing the sheer instrumentation to deliver that same, haunting effect, with loads of drums and constantly winding tremolo riffs that feel as if they were written in that critically important 1988-1993 period when the niche was just taking flight as the bastard child of thrash metal.

There's still a vaulted echo to the Pillard-esque vocals which places the band in the same sphere as many of their young contemporaries, but what I found interesting is that Ectovoid do not write like a bunch of slugs. This isn't death/doom like you'd expect out of, say, Father Befouled. They play fast as a rule, alternating between blasted passages and fibrous grooves which settle somewhere between the realms of Onward to Golgotha, Demilich's Nespithe and late 80s Bolt Thrower. I've read that the band invokes influence also from archaic doom and black metal sources, and I can certainly sense such an imprint, but more as an after-effect than in the actual architecture of the guitars, which are delivered with this oppressive, muddy tone that somehow doesn't manage to hijack the clarity of the notes. There is a quite natural air about the production, as if they made a conscious effort to avoid excess polish and deliver as honest and 'live' a sound as possible, with only the vocals sounding separate, and that's due to their sweltering, unearthly volume and inflection.

Riff-wise, I wouldn't call these the most novel of constructions, but advocates for returning to the analog roots of the style will be happy that they don't sound entirely derivative of other source material. Perhaps not all are patterned as evilly and memorable as one might desire, but Ectovoid floods the listener with such a constant, frothing miasma of churned change-ups and guttural atrocities that one never needs fear excess repetition (if it appears at all, it's only due to the stylistic similarity of so many of the selections). Choppier, slower paced riffs are used to break up the momentum in tracks like "Dark Clouds of Consciousness", walls of open, thundering chords vary up the tremolo picked passages, and the leads are quite well rendered to provide that added dimension of frightful melody that might be lacking in the deeper din of the rhythm section. I always felt like the music was effective, if individual tracks didn't prove all that distinctive from the whole.

Ultimately, Fractured in the Timeless Abyss is like suffocating in crude oil, a consistent and tremulous journey into the opacity of trans-dimensional horror that summons up all manner of Lovecraftian imagery. A cool record for those into other, recent abominations like Binah or Blaspherian.

Verdict: Win [7.25/10]

http://www.facebook.com/ectovoid

Overkill - Immortalis (2007)

Immortalis is yet another bromidic kick in the balls from the once and future greats Overkill, another costly studio exercise which fails to expand or elevate the brand in any meaningful way beyond fattening up their discography. Once again, Chaly is represented on the cover in a fairly uninspired pose, like he's locking onto some off-screen prey, but I like to think of it as the winged skull barking out his discontent at the band for producing yet another of those albums which abandons the listener's memory almost as soon or he/she has first experienced it. But hey, at least we're doing with the proper color palette this time out, and even if Immortalis seems like it's just doing the rounds in some hamster wheel of midlife thrasher crisis, it at least feels more enthusiastic than its direct predecessor ReliXIV.

Which is not saying a hell of a lot, because once again we've got an album of relatively average thrash with interesting riffs in a severely limited quantity, infected with groove metal and rock & roll influences that were never this band's forte and will never play to their strength. I've said it a thousand times before, that I've got no real problem with the 'concept' of groove metal, or even its execution. I enjoy Chaos A.D. much to the chagrin of any underground consensus, and I like how bands like Gojira or Meshuggah implement the simpler, meatier riffing structures into something you can quake your limbs to. The 'breakdown' was a wonderful technique used through the 80s in both hardcore and early speed/thrash metal, and there are still hundreds of bands in the 21st century which use it well. But when I hear some cheap, dense Pantera Far Beyond Driven style passage as in "Skull and Bones", with the lame interchange of post-Anselmo pundit Randy Blythe (Lamb of God) and Bobby Blitz sounding his street-est, I begin to laugh out of control. No sir, I do not like that singer or his band and the Overkill capable of writing "Deny the Cross" and "Rotten to the Core" does not fucking need this in any form or fashion!

Granted, this isn't that Overkill, but it's still difficult to conceive of Immortalis as anything but a 'last gasp' of the less inspired and inspiring beast they devolved into through the 90s, especially taking into account the two albums they have since released. New drummer Ron Lipnicki arrives in full force, with some strong double bass skills and chops that seem a suitable replacement for long-term thunderer Tim Mallare, and like any album the band released in the past 10-15 years, the production here is meaty and more potent than the actual music written. There are a few classier riffs here than the previous album, like the trad metal bits in "Hellish Pride" or the surgical, unexpected thrashing that breaks out in "Overkill V" (which gives us a nice foreshadowing of Ironbound), but the overwhelming majority of songs written for this seem to lack that certain 'something' which made the band so special in the Gustafson era. It's pretty much stock biker thrash, a spiritual vessel for the core Overkill aesthetics that settles safely into its mooring without ever taking a glimpse beyond the docks.

That doesn't make it poorly implemented, because it's clear the guitars have a decent grasp on their bluesy, wailing leads, and there's a little more of a furnace lit under its ass than ReliXIV. Only a few tunes like "Skull and Bones" and "Head On" suck outright, where others like "Shadow of a Doubt" seem like a hint of what's to come when the band return to their senses. D.D. Verni is not much of a presence here in comparison to the old days where you almost felt you needed to turn him down, but I'm not sure these songs deserve much effort on his behalf. Blitz turns in a slightly more venomous and taunting performance here than the last album, but he's still not screeching out those amazing, sticky choruses he once manifest in "Elimination", "I Hate" or "Electro-Violence". I hardly had high expectations for this, since Killbox 13 was, for me, the only album they'd written since the 80s that balanced on the precipice of success, but it still creates the cloying consistency of sack breath despite never fully choking off its own genitalia. The law of averages once again upheld.

Verdict: Indifference [5.5/10] (here is the same old story)

http://wreckingcrew.com/Ironbound/

Overkill - ReliXIV (2005)

Perhaps better though of as RelapseXIV, Overkill's 2005 full-length takes a step back to the problems that were plaguing many of its predecessors like Necroshine, W.F.O. or From the Underground and Below, namely the fact that it seems to divide itself between a number of merely passable old school tracks redolent of their brighter 80s years and vapid groove metal tunes that are incontrovertibly insipid to the point that, for years, I've found it difficult to even remember that this album existed in the first place. It's not the worst of their studio efforts, its aroma more tolerable than the pungent experimentation of I Hear Black or the sorry arsed Necroshine, but after the band had begun to ascend from its qualitative slumber through Bloodletting and Killbox 13, it's a rather frustrating affair which really never needed to exist.

As I hear it, the problem with ReliXIV is that it really lacks ideas, most of the songs seemingly constructed out of the band's 90s riffing patterns, slightly altered. This was a problem with thrash metal in general in the prior decade, the band's simply ran out of inspiration to create fresh, progressive guitar blueprints that could carry the genre forward without needing to reduce it to a lowest common denominator platform of tough guy grooves for a moshing, hardcore influenced crowd who largely couldn't have given a shit about the content of metal as opposed to its inherent lifestyle. Just laying down palm muted processions of notes doesn't cut it, and a good number of cuts here like "Within Your Eyes" or "Loaded Rack", while well meaning and loyal to the band's origins, toss away their potential on boring guitars that don't really seem to involve much effort or technical skill, just predictable chords. What's more, though, even Bobby Blitz himself seems to have been leeched of all his own charisma, and few if any of his lines through the album cling to the brain like so many he has spat in the past...

Structurally, there is some solid production involved with the album, nice and meaty guitars rocking along with largely mid-paced Exodus palette. The chords are bold, there will occasionally be a thicker groove (intro to "Love", for example) or even a slower, tremolo picked piece. I wouldn't claim that this album had an excess of variation, though, because the songs seem to primarily hinge on slower, boring butt thrash like "Wheelz" or the mid-paced attempts to invoke the band's ritualistic enemy. Tunes like "The Mark" bring out some classic 70s metal riff sequences on top of the concrete drumming of Tim Mallere, but every card this album pulls out of its deck contributes to a losing hand. The grooves in "Play the Ace", for example are wholly generic bar-core slop that tons of groups were writing during the Pantera dominated 90s, and "Love" is such a shit tune that the quality of its riffing surpasses even the superfluous poignancy of its simplified title. The only song that dares pick up the energy to an appropriate level is "A Pound of Flesh" with its Slayer like speed metal velocity, but it too suffers form a dearth of creativity in the riffs.

It's hardly a terrible or particularly offensive album, just lackluster in all respects. Even the boring Travis Smith cover seemed played out and redundant (as with the previous record), Chaly relegated once more to the status of a gargoyle icon against a pretty uninteresting backdrop. I suppose ReliXIV could be said to sound professional enough, but ultimately it's just another supporting brick in the band's discography to keep them active and touring, and there are no classics here that belong in their set lists for fans to pine over. It's also one of those rare Overkill outings where the vocals are nearly as dull as the guitars. Not a good starting place if you find yourself new and interested in the bands, and I couldn't recommend to anyone save a fan of the most banal groove/thrash dated a decade before its release.

Verdict: Indifference [5.25/10] (send them on their way)

http://wreckingcrew.com/Ironbound/

Overkill - Killbox 13 (2003)

With its intense Slayer-ific breakdown, and the eerie chorus vocals that reprise the opening guitar melody, "Devil by the Tail" was probably the best album opener Overkill had unleashed in several years, and made me instantly excited that the band had reached deep into themselves to produce a proper knuckle sandwich worthy of the brand. There was still a hint or two of the bland riffing that plagued Necroshine, and the band was largely committed to creating similar, simplistic structures rather than finally evolving beyond the threshold they built in the later 80s, but a lot of the riffs on this seem to come together, and ultimately there are about a half-dozen songs on this thing that are comparably fun to much of the band's much lauded material of recent years.

Tracks like "Damned" or "The One" might seem to hinge on mere reconfigurations of riffs the band had written earlier for weaker records, but they possess excellent build-ups and payout choruses that stick with you at least for a few months. I don't like the backing vocals in the latter, granted, they're pretty phoned in and might have been better mixed to provide added power, but Blitz carries the day with relative ease despite the almost pedestrian mentality behind a lot of the mid-paced thrash riffing. "The Sound of Dying" has a great momentum to it, the sporadic and stringy leads, and "Struck Down" has some nice descending lines in the bass and guitar while building a speed/thrash gait not unlike "What I'm Missing", one of the standouts from the prior album. "Unholy" is another muscular piece which wouldn't have seemed out of place on a record like Taking Over, while "No Lights" and "Crystal Clear" make great use of more sluggish ball fisted pacing, the latter having some great vocals where Bobby almost seems to channel Ronny James Dio.

This was Derek 'The Skull' Tailer's studio debut in the band, returning them to the 5-man configuration they had briefly dropped off, but while he and Linsk manage to carve out a nice double slice of sirloin, I would not put it far past its predecessor. I don't know if it was a conscious decision, but the bass here, apart from being audible, doesn't exactly stand out next to the rhythm guitars, and Verni's lines feel as distinct as they had been in 88-89 or even some of their less appealing groove metal infusions. Once more, you get the few traces of 90s Overkill, but to be honest I think you could probably erase the band's career from 1991-2000 and just tack this on after The Years of Decay for a perfectly fluid continuity. Not the greatest of the band's albums, but this was more enjoyable to me than Bloodletting and the music far outshines the bland cover and title. I realize Ironbound is considered this group's return to the thrashing fore, partly due to a whole new generational audience exploring the thrash revival, but Killbox 13 was functional enough to earn that honor.

Verdict: Win [7/10] (oh to be the fire)

http://wreckingcrew.com/Ironbound/

Overkill - Bloodletting (2000)

Leading up to this coverage of the Overkill discography, I might have told you that Bloodletting blurred into Necroshine for me, that I've always found the albums inseparable in terms of songwriting and their aesthetic choices of hybridized groove and thrash metal, but in truth Bloodletting feels better put together than its studio predecessor, and is able to hold the listener's attention span for a larger chunk of its playtime. At the turn of the new millennium, so many fresh sounds were pouring out of extreme metal's constituent genres that an album like this was hard for me to pay much attention to. I bought it because I buy most of their records out of some strange sense of loyalty I maintain with most of the long-time veterans in the thrash genre, but I'll admit I have not gotten much value out of it...and in returning once more to see what I might have been missing...well, I'm not.

Part of the reason I do rank this above the mediocre Necroshine is that I simply seem to appreciate how Dave Linsk puts his guitars together, even through the weakest, banal grooves that infest the largely he's got a particular structure to his performance that just locks better with my rhythmic imagination. There are some admittedly lame riff patterns through the album, with songs like "Let It Burn", "I, Hurricane" or "Thunderhead" where the guitars feel incredible predictable and almost effortless to anyone who chug along and mix up a few bottom frets into chords, but in general I found that this was a more thrashing effort in total, where we were starting to see the 'Kill emerge from its sodden 90s slumber. A good example of this is "What I'm Missing", a faster speed/thrash tune with hints of 80s Megadeth threaded beneath Blitz' raucous delivery, and "Left Hand Man" which opens with these clean guitars and melodies and opens out into machine gun fire hooks that are positively saturated with energy, even despite the breakdowns. There are additional passages of cleaner guitars throughout which feel appreciably atmospheric and haunting.

Bloodletting also manifests as a more vicious and appealing experience where I almost constantly feel that same level of threat from Taking Over or Under the Influence, it just doesn't stick as much when it comes to the choruses or the quality of individual vocal lines and note progressions. The rhythm section sounds great on this one, with Verni losing a bit of his dextrous sore thumb presence and blending in a little better into the arching and crashing of the rhythm guitars, and Tim Mallare delivering a balanced attack through the slower and faster pieces. The leads here in tunes like "What I'm Missin'" are pretty good, Linsk doesn't bite off more than he can chew, carving out your ear canals with just enough finesse and unhinged spontaneity that you'll begin to remember them even when the surrounding riffs are lackluster. Blitz also manages quite a heavy load of aggression in his inflection here, nearly growling as he batters through the verse of "Death Comes Out to Play" into his street harpy heights and back again.

I would almost dub this a good album, save for that half of the songs dwell on borderline retarded grooves that seem like the band just can't shake the specters of failed stylistic growth that they had been flirting with for years. The lyrics are a crap shoot, and generic riffing and breakdowns abound, but I got the impression that at least for a few seconds in each tune there was a genuine, volatile surge of what I loved about the band so much in the mid-80s. In a way, I almost felt as if this were an early 'comeback', though the band had gone nowhere. It's not as strong as Ironbound or their most recent album The Electric Age, but despite a few stumbles it was better than anything else they'd released since Horrorscope.

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10] (a line you'll never find)

http://wreckingcrew.com/Ironbound/