Thrash Talk #2 - The Years of Decay (Overkill)

This album may not be as heavy as some other thrash metal albums, but the sound of Overkill makes them different from most thrash metal bands. They sound more like Motorhead but more thrashy and with a singer that sounds like Mickey Mouse.

It would be one of the greatest thrash metal albums of all time due to Overkill's unique sound compared to other bands, and all the really good tracks in the album, but this album, unlike Reign in Blood, had fillers. The first filler was I Hate, which did have some good lyrics, about hating things, but seemed to be one of their weakest songs from the albums. Nothing to Die For is also an ok track, and I like the guitar intro in the song, but everything else let the song down making it the worst of the album.

The album starts with two of their greatest thrash classics of all time. We all know and remember Elimination, a song about AIDS which they thought was the gay equivalent to cancer, and although the song was short, it would be one of the best songs. All the solos were great, especially the one after the first 2 minutes of the song. The only bad thing about the song was the main riff, which sounded exactly like Master of Puppets. Time to Kill was the much better song because it's intro was much better than any of their other songs, and the breakdown in the song felt like your end would soon come. That reminds me, one of the songs called E.vil N.ever D.ies is just a continuation of the eponymous series of songs from the first three albums, but unlike those, it was not named Overkill IV. That song would be one of my favorites from the album, as it would be the heaviest, but still have its dark moments. The best part of the song, would be the solo in the very end, the best solo that Overkill has ever done.

Some of the songs are actually much longer than the average thrash metal song, which give the album more of a doom metal feel since a lot of those songs didn't rely on the speed and aggression of heavy guitars, but they were slower and used dark themes to make it more scary. These songs would be more of a medium between doom metal and thrash metal, and were some of the best in the album. One of the songs, Playing With Spiders/Skullkrusher, would definitely point out that thrash metal isn't the only genre they're good at playing, which is one of the reasons why I like Overkill, and why this is one of the greatest thrash metal albums of all time.

I do like this album alot, and I would say it's Overkill's best work, and one of the greatest thrash metal albums of all time. Elimination, Evil Never Dies, and Time to Kill prove that Overkill is a heavy thrash metal band even though they sound different, and the longer tracks show their doom side as they played more than one genre in this album, and both were good. While all the band members showed a lot of talent in this song, I kinda liked the guitar work of Bobby Gustafson the best, as his solos in Elimination, Evil Never Dies, along with his opening works in Nothing to Die For and Who Tends The Fire were outstanding, making him an underrated, but talented guitarist.

The Verdict: 95/100
Best Song: Playing With Spiders/Skullkrusher

There goes the second episode of Thrash Talk, the next album to be reviewed, will probably not be a thrash metal album.

Comments

This Is One Of My Favorite Thrash Metal Albums Its In My Top 10 Best Metal Albums
It's A Really Great Album My Favorite Tracks Off This Album Is The Title Track Elimination,Playing With Spiders/Skullkrusher And Evil Never Dies - visitor (12/29/2016)