ROCKET REVIEW: OVERKILL -“The Grinding Wheel” (CD)

American thrash metal act, OVERKILL, have unleashed their eighteenth studio album in 2017 entitled The Grinding Wheel and having been a long time fan of this band going back three decades, this is easily my favorite since 1991’s Horrorscope. While other old school metal acts have become more mainstream and have dulled around the edges, Blitz and the boys are bringing the pain at a level that only a few other bands going today half their age can match. Produced by the band, with Andy Sneap handliing mixing and mastering the slamming effort kicks off with “Mean, Green, Killing Machine”, which is a totally killer and epic tune clocking in at seven and a half minutes, followed by the go for the throat “Goddamn Trouble” and absolutely brilliant “Our Finest Hour”.

All of the songs on this record were written by bassist D. D. Verni and lead vocalist Bobby “Blitz” Ellsworth. The guitar duo of Dave Linsk on lead guitar and Derek “The Skull” Tailer jamming rhythm guitar is so tight it’s on another level. The next cuts are “Shine On”, “The Long Road”, and my personal favorite “Let’s All Go to Hades”. Blitz sounds so sinister on this song it’s out of this world good. Let me not forget to mention how awesome the drumming is by Eddy Garcia. He is without a doubt one of the best going in the game today.

The album concludes with “Come Heavy”, “Red White and Blue” and two similarly named songs “The Wheel”, and album title track “The Grinding Wheel”. Any fan of the old school will definitely want to pick this album up but also I think that it sounds modern enough and is so outstanding that it should attract a lot of new fans.

ROCKET REVIEW:

OVERKILL -“The Grinding Wheel” (CD)
(eOne Music/2017)

1. Mean, Green, Killing Machine
2. Goddamn Trouble
3. Our Finest Hour
4. Shine On
5. The Long Road
6. Let’s All Go to Hades
7. Come Heavy
8. Red White and Blue
9. The Wheel
10. The Grinding Wheel

http://wreckingcrew.com/Ironbound/