Live in Overhausen

The Live in Overhausen double-live record is a fairly interesting concept...while a lot of veteran bands have been touring off performances of their seminal albums in their entirety, it's a rare thing to see one take on TWO at once. But that is exactly what Overkill has done with this release, pairing up Horrorscape and their debut Feel the Fire into a double album that must have been a big thrill to fans of their first decade of material over in Germany. The material is presented as a live Blu Ray with the full spread of the performance, and then two audio CDs for each of the albums in case you want to play them in your car or at work if you don't want your wife or boss recoiling from the sweaty East Coast thrashing.

Now, full disclosure here: I'm on record as not being the biggest fan of Horrorscope. It's got some strong moments, for sure, and is far from any sort of career nadir, but I felt this was the point where the band started to evade my interests. It's part of my 'curse of 1991', a year in which a lot of bands I enjoyed put out some records I thought were 'just okay', but a swell in the metal audience made them all successful regardless. There's no question that the band had been building up quite a following through its first four albums, and I've met fans who honestly think it's their very best work. I don't get it, I mean there are single songs on Taking Over I prize more than the whole affair, but what can you say? I'm a far bigger proponent for Feel the Fire, which remains my second favorite of their offerings ever after the 30+ years I've been listening to them, still an exciting debut that gets some spins here, so we all know which disc (or half of the gig) I was anticipating more.

Having said that, the Horrorscape material sounds pretty faithful and well-performed, considering they probably had to really do some digging and prep-work in the rehearsals to summon this all back up. The guitars are chunky and forceful, the drums and bass adequately mixed, the vocals sound good and the crowd response, chanting and pounding away really works well in tunes like "Coma". There are a few elements which sound a little dry, like the lead guitars, but really if you want that meaty moshing thrash stuff like in "Infectious" the rhythm guitar and bass tone got you covered, and the audience clearly appreciated it. All in all, even for someone who's not a huge fan of that record I would say they do it justice, and it's a dynamic record which translates well into a set. However, Feel the Fire is just so much better...tunes like "Rotten to the Core" and "Hammerhead" retain all of their ages-old frenetic energy, Blitz sounding like he's coming unhinged, a quality that is actually drained a little with the backing vocal or crowd interaction. It's cool to hear it all performed out like this, from the aforementioned thrashers to the eponymous, eerie "Overkill" to their legendary cover of "Fuck You" by The Subhumans, which closes out the set in all its vulgar grandeur.

The video looks pretty good too, lots of lights flashing everywhere, the musicians performing their parts effortlessly. There's not a ton of motion here, I mean I've seen the band when they (and I) were much younger and they put on more of a crowd pleasing, savage physical presence, but considering the age these gentlemen are at they come off as consummate professionals, especially Verni and Linsk. I appreciate metal DVDs and Blu Rays as proxies for actually being there, and this one is worth a view, but there's not a huge level of dynamic change happening throughout the two sets, it can grow a little samey to watch, so I'd recommend it in smaller chunks or just forward to your fave tunes. Altogether a good package for Overkill fans, I liked it more than Wrecking Your Neck Live or Wrecking Everything Live, and I say that's without being crazy for half the material they're playing.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

Good evening, Overhausen! Thanks for calling your city similar to our band name. Overhausen, I like that! I will repeat this joke at least twenty times tonight. Let's rock, Overhausen!

Alright, so you know that we have recently signed a worldwide deal with German label Nuclear Blast which is the reason why we record a live album in Germany and why I will try to say some stupid things in German from time to time. Alright, I've got a German joke for you: ''Es gibt zwei Sachen, die riechen nach Fisch. Eine davon ist Fisch!''

Okay, back to topic, Overhausen! As you know, the first thing Nuclear Blast did after the signature of our worldwide deal is to release a highly expensive collection of mediocre records from our middle years, the stupidly titled Historikill. We thought we were done with living in the past and released a quite decent new studio record The Grinding Wheel. We wanted to record a live album with songs from our last four outputs but our label disagreed. People like living in the past, they said. You should play more classics, they said. In fact, you should only play classics, they said. So, we randomly chose two popular old records with Horrorscope and Feel the Fire and decided to play them in their entirety, one after another in anti-chronological order.

I know, this sounds sleep-inducing, Overhausen, and it is, but I also have good news. Apart of our groove metal years in the nineties and early years of the new millennium, we have always played ferocious thrash metal. No matter which album we're going to pick, it will always sound like Overkill. If this concept here works well, we will play The Years of Decay followed by Taking Over next time. Hell yeah, Overhausen! Tonight's show will include plenty of tough riffs, fast guitar solos, dominant bumblebee bass guitar passages and precise drum patterns. My band mates will deliver plenty of raw background vocals. Don't you worry about my vocals, I still sound like a mixture of Thin Lizzy's Phil Lynott, AC/DC's Bon Scott and my own grandmother. I will make you bang, cheer and sing along to our classics. And I will of course make some jokes and speak some German to make you go crazy: ''Ich bin ein Overhausener!''

So, if you like our signature thrash metal style with a raw and authentic live production, you are going to appreciate this record and get almost two hours of ferocious and timeless music. ''Kauft diesen Scheiß, Overhausen!'' Thank you and good night!