Overkill

Live at The Regent Theatre

Los Angeles, CA

October 6th, 2015

Review and photos by Travis Baumann

Overkill are a thrash metal band hailing from New Jersey. They do have similarities to other bands in the thrash genre but they are very much their own entity as well.

Starting in the early 1980's, Overkill has put out a vast library of releases and while they have matured in some ways, their style and lyrical content have stayed true to their original intentions.

Dual guitar assault from Dave Linsk and Derek Tailer is backed up by a heavy bass presence from founding member D.D. Verni. Add in rapid fire drums from Ron Lipnicki and you have a brutally fast version of old school heavy metal with the Overkill touch.

The lead singer, Bobby "Blitz" Ellsworth's vocals fall into the gravelly yet fairly melodic style along the lines of Brian Johnson or Udo Dirkschneider and work very well with this style of music.

I have heard Overkill on and off over the years but it wasn't until their last two records, "The Electric Age" and "White Devil Armory" that I would have considered myself a hardcore Overkill fan.

The last two releases are awesome and I was excited to have them touring in support of the latter. They opened the set with the intro "XDM" followed by the title track "Armorist" off of "White Devil Armory".

They have so many songs in their catalog it was interesting to see what they chose to play. A lot of diehard Overkillers were in the audience so they were stoked to hear one of their older songs next with "Hammerhead".

They did my favorite song of theirs with "Electric Rattlesnake" off of "The Electric Age". This is a great record so I was hoping for a lot more from this release but at least I got my favorite.

They spent quite a bit of time with some of their earliest releases playing "Powersurge" followed by "Rotten to the Core".

The lead singer was very charismatic, moving all over the place while singing and engaging the audience with funny banter in between songs including some discussion of baseball which garnered some feedback from those in the audience that had differing opinions on teams.

They continued the set with "Bring Me The Night" from their "Ironbound" release before moving way back in their time line. They played "End Of The Line" followed by a huge fan favorite, "Hello From The Gutter".

Returning to the latest album for one more new song, they did "Bitter Pill" which lead into their theme song, "Overkill".

Last song of the main set was the title track from the "Ironbound" album. The band left the stage with a very loud resounding chant of "Overkill!" from just about every voice in the room.

After a short break, they returned to the stage and gave the audience the old hits they had been waiting for with "Playing With Spiders/Skullkrusher" and "Elimination".

Ending the night on a fittingly gruff note, they did a cover of the SubHumAns song "Fuck You". They left the stage with every middle finger in the place raised, it was pretty hilarious.

Overkill are definitely great live.  I can't wait to see them again next year.

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