‘Historikill 1995-2007’ – Ranking Overkill’s Albums From Their Forthcoming Retrospective Release

5. Necroshine (1999)

Source // moole.ru

What an opener! The self-titled opening track hits like a runaway freight train, revving everything up to fever-pitch levels of excitement and lifting hopes that Overkill’s 10th album is going to be a modern classic. Not quite, the rest of the album fails to match the intensity and fiendishly catchy song-writing craft of “Necroshine” with only “Forked Tongued Kiss” and “I Am Fear” coming remotely close.

With Joe Comeau (Liege Lord/Annihilator) on board at this point in their career, Overkill  experimented fairly wildly with their trademark sound, confident enough to tinker with expectation and the likes of “80 Cycles” proved they were as adept at all-out Thrashin’ as they were aping the Groove-Metal ferocity of Pantera and Machine Head et all. For the majority of the time this approach worked, convincing enough to warrant exploring further but a line-up change was again coming and this ‘version’ of Overkill proved fairly short-lived.

Somewhat of an anomaly in their formidable back catalogue, Necroshine is a love it or hate it Overkill album. Those who love it will appreciate the moderate change in direction and the anvil-heavy riffs that crush and pulverise while the haters will miss the blistering Thrash of old. Whichever camp you fall into, Necroshine is still an album worthy of a spin, it’s merits revealing themselves slowly when given the chance. 7/10

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