OVERKILL — Horrorscope (review)

OVERKILL — Horrorscope album cover Album · 1991 · Thrash Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4.5/5 ·
UMUR
"Horrorscope" is the 5th full-length studio album by US thrash metal act Overkill. The album was released through Megaforce/Atlantic Records in September 1991. A major lineup change has taken place as original guitarist and composer Bobby Gustafson was fired from the band in 1990. Apparently because of growing tensions between him and bassist D.D. Verni over the direction of the band´s music. To replace Gustafson, the band added two guitarists in Rob Cannavino and Merritt Gant.

...if there were ever any doubts that Overkill could carry on without Gustafson, those doubts are blown to pieces by "Horrorscope". If anything, "Horrorscope" is an even better composed, better played, better produced, darker and more aggressive thrash metal album than both "Under The Influence (1988)" and "The Years Of Decay (1989)", which are both great albums in their own right. The most important thing though is that the music on the album sounds unmistakably like Overkill. The new guitarists are a great fit, providing a fierce rythm attack as well as playing blistering solos. The rabid dog sneer of Bobby "Blitz" Ellsworth is intact and even a bit more aggressive than usual and when the rythm section also deliver the goods in a tight fashion like they do here, there´re little to complain about.

"Horrorscope" is positively loaded with great thrash metal tracks. Power as well as memorability are in the high seat all the way through the 53:05 minutes long album. Tracks like "Blood Money", "Thanx for Nothin´", the heavy title track, the instrumental "Frankenstein" and the closing power ballad type track "Soulitude" are among the highlights, but all material on the album are of high quality and most tracks kick ass in the most charming way possible. I say charming, because even though there are plenty of aggression on the album, there´s also plenty of that "gleam in the eye fuck you attitude" present on the album that has always made Overkill stand out from the crowd.

"Horrorscope" is what you can call Overkill´s peak or in other words their most accomplished album. They´ve yet to release a real stinker, but the quality of their output did sink slightly after "Horrorscope". They are still an admirably consistent act though so you´ll generally hear very little bad about them coming from my mouth. On "Horrorscope" everything came together in a way it rarely does on any release by any act though and a 4.5 star (90%) rating is fully deserved.
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