Overkill

About Overkill

Overkill came out of New Jersey in 1980, which matters because thrash metal gets credited to the Bay Area, but the East Coast had its own thing happening. Bobby "Blitz" Ellsworth and DD Verni started the band, and they're still there four decades later, which is either admirable or slightly concerning depending on how you feel about consistency.

They were part of that first wave of American thrash alongside Metallica, Slayer, and Anthrax, but Overkill always felt a bit more rooted in punk and NWOBHM than their peers. They had the speed and aggression but also this rawness that kept them from sounding too polished. Their early demos got them noticed in the underground tape trading scene, back when that was how you discovered music if you didn't live near a good record store.

The debut album "Feel the Fire" came out in 1985, followed quickly by "Taking Over" in 1987, but it was "The Years of Decay" in 1989 that really showed what they could do. The title track stretched past nine minutes and proved they could write something with actual dynamics instead of just pummeling you for three minutes straight. "Elimination" from that record became a live staple, and for good reason.

Then the nineties happened. Thrash fell out of favor, grunge took over, and most of their contemporaries either broke up, changed sounds, or disappeared into irrelevance. Overkill just kept making albums. "Horrorscope" in 1991 might be their best work, heavier and darker than anything they'd done before. "I Hate" is the kind of song that makes you understand why people stayed loyal to this band when thrash wasn't cool anymore.

They went through some lineup changes in the mid-nineties, tried some slightly more groove-oriented stuff that didn't entirely work, then came back harder with "Killbox 13" in 2003. By that point, thrash was having a resurgence thanks to younger bands citing the old guard as influences, and Overkill benefited from actually never having left.

The recent run has been surprisingly strong. "The Electric Age" in 2012, "White Devil Armory" in 2014, "The Grinding Wheel" in 2017, and "The Wings of War" in 2019 all sound like a band that still cares about what they're doing. They're not reinventing anything, but they're not coasting either. Blitz still sounds like Blitz, that high-pitched snarl that should probably be medically impossible at this point.

They've released twenty studio albums, toured relentlessly, and maintained a cult following that never quite pushed them into the mainstream but kept them working. They're proof that you can build a career on being consistently good at one thing without needing to have a massive breakthrough or sell millions of records.

Overkill shows move. No tuning breaks, minimal talking, just sustained aggression for ninety minutes. The pit is serious but not violent. Blitz's voice cuts through everything live. These crowds are there specifically for this band, not just passing through.

Known for Rotten to the Core, Ironbound, Mean, Green, Killing Machine, Come and Get Me, Infectious

See Overkill Live