This time they’re coming heavy
Now Black Sabbath have called it a day, it feels like the end of era. But also time to reflect on the innovators of this great and varied beast we call “Heavy Metal”.
Take one of its most enduring – and times more thrilling – offshoots, thrash. For a while there it looked dodgy, because thrash metal bands stopped making thrash metal records.
Over the last few years, though that’s changed. Metallica and Anthrax stuck out crackers last year, Slayer the year before, and if that’s three of the big four taken care of, then the bands that bubble at the top of the league just below, have followed suit.
Testament, Exodus and the ilk have rediscovered something in themselves again and likewise Overkill.
This, their 18th studio record, is one of their best and is essentially a follow on from the mighty “Ironbound”, which crucially saw them remember that thrash metal isn’t just supposed to sound nasty, it’s meant to be a punk rock element too. “The Grinding Wheel” (by the band’s own admission, the title is a nod to Judas Priest) does too. That it also wants to do nothing modern and is steadfast in the idea that the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal should still be new, is entirely to its credit.
Not for nothing does the snotty second track here “Goddamn Trouble” namecheck Deep Purple’s “Highway Star”, because this Overkill looking back to the past to their future.
The opener “Mean Green Killing Machine” has already made that mindset abundantly clear. Over seven minutes long, it amounts to nothing more than a statement of intent. It’s first 90 seconds are a riff for goodness sake and you can almost see the moshpit starting even before Bobby “Blitz” Ellsworth has spat out vocals in his trademark half screaming style.
“Our Finest Hour” is viscous in its attack too, and with Ron Lipnicki right at the top of his game on drums, “The Grinding Wheel” is nothing if not expertly played. The riffs are huge. “Shine On” would cheerfully smash your face if it was given the chance and there’s nothing approaching a let up in any way shape or form.
That’s not to say, though that there’s not plenty of variations here. You presume, for example, that everyone concerned with this is perfectly happy that “The Long Road” – possibly the highlight here – sounds like Iron Maiden at their most angry, and the huge dumb fun of “Lets All Go To Hades” would cheerfully rival Exodus’ “Toxic Waltz” as a kind of anthem.
It can do swinging groove too, “Come Heavy” proves that, and while “Red White And Blue” has a touch of the Slayer’s about it (and you suspect that Kerry King would sort out the world in the same way) then it still has the stamp of Overkill all over it.
The title track ends things here, and does so by summing up everything that’s great about this record, but more importantly Overkill over the last 35 years or so in one handy eight minute chunk of fists in the air seething. Where the album sits in their pantheon history will judge, but “The Grinding Wheel” is the best collection they could have released right now.
Rating 8.5/10
