Outside of the Big Four, many people sadly forget about so many extremely talented and fairly big thrash bands that have come out over the decades. With the recent release from Testament, people were reminded once more of other thrash greats that aren’t part of some elite group given by the people. If there were to be another group of pristine thrash bands alongside Testament, I want Overkill to also be there because they’ve once more shown they can fucking shred after so long.
Overkill have been shown to be nowhere near pushovers in their time, and I had a gut feeling that they weren’t going to disappoint with the announcement of their upcoming album, “The Grinding Wheel”, that’ll come out in 2017. The first single, “Our Finest Hour”, was good. It was a solid song that was definitely something I’d come to expect from Overkill after so many years, but it didn’t really make me go “fuck yeah!” or anything of the sort. “Mean, Green, Killing Machine”, though? Holy shit! Talk about a real punch to the fucking jaw with this song, I tell you what. This seven and a half minute track is a real throwback to the classic days of thrash were what truly mattered what the speed and what rhythms that you could pump out while still keeping a headbang-inducing power the entire time. That’s exactly what this song brings immediately after hitting play. It’s a fucking awesome time that you truly would expect to come out of the living legend that is Overkill, and combined with the first single it really does seem like “The Grinding Wheel” is shaping up to be the first awesome album from a marginally bigger band that’ll come out of 2017.
A brilliant and massively entertaining sample that really wets the palette, “Mean, Green, Killing Machine” is one of those songs that was made to be a single, and you can really tell how delicious the first minute alone is. I, obviously, have no clue whatsoever what the full album will sound like, but I got a good level of confidence in saying that “The Grinding Wheel” is going to be one of those thrash albums that none of us are going to want to miss even a second of.
“The Grinding Wheel” releases on February 10th!
PRE-ORDER “The Grinding Wheel” via iTunes here.
LISTEN to “Mean, Green, Killing Machine” via YouTube here or below.
LIKE Overkill on Facebook here.
FOLLOW Overkill on Twitter : @OverkillBand
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