Overkill - The Wings of War album Review

Metal Reviews - Overkill

Overkill - The Wings of War

• It feels like it was just yesterday that I was venting my frustrations with Overkill’s 18th studio album, The Grinding Wheel. But like clockwork, like Old Faithful, the AC/DC of thrash metal have returned with album number 19, and surprise surprise, there are no surprises to be had.

• I know that expecting Overkill to switch it up, given their track record, is not a realistic expectation.

• But I still can’t get past the frustration of the unaltered repetition of the same formula to churn out mid-tier thrash like an AI. 

• I’m not asking them to get trendy or anything like that; in fact I am actually grateful for at least their consistency in contributing to a genre within metal that I hold very dear. 

• In fact, I quite appreciate a band that can cling very tightly to and focus solely on what they know they do best. But it’s the fact that there has always been room for improvement in Overkill’s formula, and it’s that lack of any desire to better themselves that frustrates me. 

• The band have had the raw talent cycling in and out of their lineup for decades to be able to push their sound or their composition to new heights, but they just seem so unmotivated to do anything but keep getting that mediocrity out every two to three years. 

• At this point, what is the point really in discussing Overkill’s music at length? 

• Even the band, when talking about it, are so laughably uncertain of how to discuss it. 

• Just hearing Bobby Ellsworth grapple with how he would characterize this new album only to conclude that it’s heavy metal, is so comically personifying of Overkill’s very obvious problem.

• With that, I guess let’s do the routine inspection of this year’s hour of Overkill, their 19th studio album, The Wings of War.

• And it really is like a tedious marking off of boxes on a checklist with Overkill, and thankfully, this album does at least fill all the boxes it needs to. 

• But at this point, there may as well be a box for teasing unfulfilled potential too, and yep, they check that one on this album too.

• That being said, I will give credit where it is due on this album. 

• It certainly kicks off well with the battlefield snare beating of the intro sections of the first song, “Last Man Standing”, and when I heard the slightly industrial tinge that led into such a heavy, dirty thrash into, I had hope it would be a sign of a more emphatic batch of songs. 

• But of course it devolves quickly after the intro into basic, old-school proto-thrash with just some improved production. 

• I like the attitude the band comes through with on the bridge of the following track, “Believe in the Fight”, as well. 

• “Head of a Pin” has it’s own briefly shining moment as well in its bridge, with the more menacing guitar section. 

• The album finishes strong with the double-bass/guitar syncopation of the old-school thrash riffs of “Hole in My Soul”, while the speed of “A Mother’s Prayer” also almost makes up for its sheer lack of interesting compositional ideas, which is practically Overkill’s and this album’s modus operandi.

• While there aren’t really any overtly annoying parts on this album like there were on The Grinding Wheel, this album tires very easily too, and it’s coasting through the air does not come without it’s standout moments of turbulence. 

• The opening clean guitar section of Distortion, for example, seems like a very transparently lazy attempt of emulating The Thing That Should Not Be, and the speedy political party thrash of Welcome to the Garden State is a change of pace on the album for more consistent whiplashing speed, but it’s not better for it by any means, just coming off as derivative Municipal Waste-type shit.

• I really can’t drag this on too long, it’s another Overkill album, another offering of serviceable nostalgia. 

• It’s another album that surely captures all the aesthetic aspects of the early glory days of thrash, but so little of its actual potency through the delicious riffs and genuinely fierce performances that made it the monster it was in the 80’s. 

• It sure sounds like it could have the power to be a great thrash album with the gnarly guitar tones and pummeling drum production across it. 

• Bobby Ellsworth’s capable high-pitched wailing, but the band just show how keen they are to kind of coast through it and don’t put the effort into making those small compositional changes that patience at the drawing board reveals to go a long way. 

• So many of the dragged out songs are just padded with nondescript repetition of thrash background noise. 

• Like, this sounds like a jam session Metallica might have had in the late 80’s, but what has Metallica apart, at least their well-admired classic work, is their meticulous piecing together of every facet of songs, the obsessive grooming and molding of ideas into their best forms and best places. 

• Whereas, Overkill seem to just keep putting out productionally polished takes of extended jam sessions.

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