OVERKILL — Ironbound (review)

Album · 2010 · Thrash Metal

4.5/5 · 2011-08-27
Diogenes

OHMYGAWD! This is ridiculous. Here we have all sorts of ancient thrash bands trying their darndest to play the real stuff again (resulting in some very mediocre attempts), while Overkill shifts gears almost effortlessly and releases something that takes a massive poo on everything else. Ironbound is the fifteenth album by the incumbent New York thrashers, and it makes one of the most powerful statements in today’s modern metal scene: Overkill is alive and well, perhaps now more than ever. And you know what that means? Pure ass-kickery, once again. That’s what this album is.

It’s no secret that the Overkill sound has changed over the years. Groove metal has made more and more of an appearance on each Overkill record, and while the band continued releasing some great material with it, they eventually fell into a rut around 2005. However, the groove sound has been pushed waaay back on this album, to the delight of myself and other thrash fans. There are genuine, true-blue thrash riffs aplenty on Ironbound, and whether they’re woven through tracks like The SRC and Bring Me the Night or sneaking up on you in the title track, rest assured that you’ll be sent back to the good old days with each bang of your head. But that’s not the whole premise of this record; there is still a tiny bit of groove to keep things interesting (most noticeably on The Head and Heart), mixed in there in just the right amounts so your neck doesn’t hurt too badly after listening. In this sense, Ironbound could be considered an “Overkill yearbook” (I couldn’t come up with anything better than that…), with the best of every era present on here. The Goal of Your Soul, for example, is very reminiscent of Bloodletting, In Vain gives more of a Horrorscope vibe, and so on. And yes, there are still your gang shouts and Overkill-ish things like that, for better or worse. I always liked them, but I completely understand if they’re not your cup of tea.

Just as the musical style is a new-yet-old sort of affair, the production has been totally reinvented on Ironbound. For a while, the thick guitar tone was what Overkill went with, but here everything sounds much more modern. The guitars have a sharpness that reduces chugging, and the drums are nice and loud. The best part is, you can still hear D.D. Verni clearly, which must set some sort of record for consecutive thrash releases with audible bass. Anyway, you would probably expect all of this for a Nuclear Blast release, but that sort of thing only seems to come up when an album is a failure (“This album sucks, but I need more reasons to hate it…I KNOW! It sounds too modern!!”), and it doesn’t matter because everything sounds gorgeous.

In keeping with my little shtick of this being a collection of Overkill at their best, I can confidently say that Ironbound has the least filler of any Overkill album in a while. Pretty much every song has something cool to bring to the table: the melodic solo in Endless War, the little breakdown and successful clean vocal experiment in Give A Little, the amazing drumming performance on In Vain…you name your preference, and there will be something here for you. Guaranteed.

Just about the only thing that hasn’t changed is the performance of Blitz on vocals. No, he can’t shriek like he used to, but he once again brings the pissed-off !!!FUCK YOU!!! attitude that makes Overkill so distinguishable, and his raspy vocal style fits the songs perfectly. This man never fails to amaze with his boundless energy behind the microphone, outperforming many thrash metal vocalists twenty years younger than he is (okay, thrash isn’t the most vocal-friendly genre, but you get the point).

What makes Ironbound so good is the combination of variety and quality, with the extra surprise factor added in. I kid you not, it’s like the band just flipped a switch and made an amazing piece of career-spanning metal, just to remind everyone how it’s done. The 80s Overkill run of awesome thrash metal releases will always be tough to beat, but Ironbound holds its own against albums old and new, standing as a testament to resiliency and dedication to the genre. Remarkable!