Overkill
IRONBOUND
Nuclear Blast

To be honest I didn't really get into this band back in their early days. I found their early efforts at thrash a little one dimensional and sterile. It wasn't until they started to vary their sound on The Years of Decay that OVERKILL started to get my attention. Even after that though I was just a passing fan of their albums. Sadly I couldn't point to a single flaw or characteristic that made me so indifferent to the band. I would buy the albums, listen a few times, decide it was a solid effort and then put it away for the rest of eternity. That all changed in 2003 with the release of Killbox 13. That album was so powerful that it made me re-evaluate the band's entire catalogue.

The band, hailing from New Jersey, has been around since the dawn of the thrash era. Ironbound is their 15th release and still features two original members in bassist D.D. Verni and singer Bobby "Blitz" Ellsworth. Amazingly Ellsworth's vocals would have been one of the factors I would have listed as a stumbling block for the band in the early days. Now I can't get enough of what he has to offer. "Piss and Vinegar" is what he once told me he sings with and I couldn't think of a better way to describe his style. The rest of the band have only been around for the last few albums and have managed to bring a level of technical precision that may have been lacking in earlier efforts. Dave Linsk and Derek Tailer are absolutely crushing on guitar. Their skull bashing riffs and ass kicking solos are something to behold.

Ironbound is the best release since Killbox 13 and is just as solid top to bottom. While the band sticks to its thrash origins, there is more than enough pace changes that I don't think you can label them that easily anymore. At some point a band just becomes a "metal" band and no longer cares to be pidgeon holed into a limited definition. I feel OVERKILL has reached that level over the past few albums. Ironbound is almost an hour long and I was left wanting more when the last note played. That is something that RelixIV and Immortalis, the band's previous two releases, failed to do for me. Over the past week I have found myself drifting back to this album over and over again, forsaking anything else that has been crossing my desk. The album kicks off with an 8 minute juggrnaut called "The Green and Black" that kicks your ass from start to finish. That really gets the ball rolling in the right direction and sets you up for what is a devastating ride. "Bring Me the Night" "The Goal Is Your Soul" "Endless War" "In Vain" and the title track will positively waste your frontal lobes. Those are just the highlights though because there is not a single bad track on Ironbound.

PITRIFF RATING - 10/10 - Officially Ironbound is a 2010 release, so sadly I won't get to name this my album of 2009. It is an honor they would have easily garnered in what has been a fairly weak year. As it stands it obviously becomes my front runner for that same honor 12 months from now. OVERKILL has gotten my attention over the last decade and Ironbound was just another slap upside my head as if to ask me what took so long.

Shawn Gould