Overkill – The Grinding Wheel – 2017
Overkill was formed in 1980 and this is their 18th album. That gives an average of about one album every two years. Of course this is not evenly spread out through the years; sometime it has been only one year and sometimes three. But as a whole the albums have been coming pretty steady! I think that’s highly impressive even though they’ve changed some members over the years. Well, most bands have! The singer Bobby “Blitz” Ellsworth and the bass player D.D. Verni has been around in the band since 1980 though. And if you ask me, they’re the ones that give the band its sound. Especially D.D. Verni since his bass playing doesn’t sound like no other.
The albums seldom give us any surprises. They just deliver solid thrash metal, no extravaganza but well written songs nicely preformed. I think that you cannot go wrong with this band. This might be a tad slower than usual, maybe a bit more laidback but who really cares? It sounds like Overkill and it’s a very controlled sound. I often don’t like albums that sound “too” produced so I guess I am a bit contradictive here but even though it’s nice and smooth it still interesting to listen too. I would even go one step further and claim that this is one of the strongest albums from the band in recent years.
