Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli…

Overkill’s The Years of Decay is our March Hall of Fame, which is available here now. Anybody who’s heard it—or really anybody who’s even a casual Overkill listener—knows that this is our big chance to churn out a bunch of shitty “e-limination” puns. I’m watching the (rad) video as I write this, and I assure you, the YouTube commentariat has that base covered. (Although, oddly, the most recent topic of discussion seems to be a qualitative comparison of Overkill and Avenged Sevenfold, which I can’t be bothered to research further.)

Anyway, as you might imagine, there’s all sorts of good shit in the HOF about back-in-the-day Terry Date, the vintage Hetfield “Yeeaaah!”, the band’s brief ascension to Euro-pop mag cover boys, and that classic lineup’s unfortunate disintegration during Bobby Blitz’s honeymoon. But the most interesting thing to me is that Blitz remains polarizing enough that I presume some of you will be pumped about this feature, and others squarely in the “fuck that, can’t stand him” zone. Which leads to a natural question: Who is the most annoying vocalist for an otherwise totally awesome band?

-AB

The March 2012 issue of Decibel, which also features Municipal Waste, Napalm Death, Cattle Decapitation, and an awesome Torche flexi disc, is available for order here. But why not just get a full subscription to ensure that you never miss an issue?

Like so many old school thrash bands, Overkill have been experiencing a renaissance as of late, and their last two releases, 2007′s Immortalis and 2010′s Ironbound, were both top-notch. So you should be excited to learn that the band has a new album coming out: it’s called The Electric Age, and will be released on March 30 via eOne.

Here’s the album art. SPOILER ALERT: Chaly is on it.

Hopefully this means we’ll get to hear new music soon. Meanwhile, the band has already announced that they’ll headline their own Killfest 2 this spring. We’ll post dates as soon as we get ‘em.

-AR

For a hot minute Overkill were supposed to be on the currently-in-progress Anthrax/Testament/Death Angel tour, which would have made it the can’t-miss thrash tour of the year, instead of just being a can’t-miss thrash tour (’cause let’s be real, that line-up is still pretty sweet). Unfortunately, they dropped off that tour, and fortunately, it was to record a new album, which, of course, meant it was only a matter of time until they toured again.

Well, hey, guess what? They’re touring again! They’ll hit the road this spring with a bunch of bands of varying degrees of coolness — namely Belphegor, Aborted, Blackguard, System Divide, and Diamond Plate – acting as support. Maybe not quite as cool as seeing them with some other classic thrash bands, but certainly not at all shabby a line-up, either. And, like many of their old school thrash peers, Overkill have been experiencing a renaissance as of late — their last two albums, Immortalis and Ironbound, were both particularly swell. Hopefully the new release will be, too, and the tour will become that much cooler.

Here are dates, courtesy of Metal Injection:

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Hey, so remember when just last week Chuck Billy said there was gonna be a tour this fall with Anthrax, Testament, Overkill, and Death Angel?

Well, yeah, turns out Overkill ain’t doing that tour.

From Metal Insider:

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The usual problems a band must endure from its drummer include tardiness, unfamiliarity with new material, no memory of old material, bringing their gf/driver everywhere, selling gear for food, non-ownership of drumsticks, car trouble, body odor, shortness, loss of one or more shoes, delirium, etc. But some drummer-issues can’t be predicted; for example, completion of the new Testament record has been delayed by drummer Paul Bostaph’s undisclosed injury. Singer Chuck Billy kinda explained Sunday in a radio interview:

Paul Bostaph is injured right now, so he couldn’t [work on] the record. We kind of put the record off a little while waiting for Paul. [Then] we found out he was not gonna be ready, so we brought on Gene Hoglan. Hoglan came in and crushed, killed the drums in about a week.

Awesome! Billy goes on to reveal the new album’s title, its other guest drummer, and the face-fuckingly awesome tour to be announced:

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Photos by Brian Schroeter

Has anybody else been to a show that was extra awesome cuz the turnout sucked? Low sales suck for the bands, and that sucks suckbags. However, under-attendance creates gigs that feel more like parties: The room is easily navigated and the few faces are soon familiar to you; at first, there’s a chill — in the case of the Forbidden, Revocation, White Wizzard, and Havok mega-jam this weekend, I overheard two pre-show conversations about how the show wouldn’t be worth it for the bands — but that chill passes, and is replaced with the “hey there you are let’s headbang” vibe; by end of show, there’s a bit of fondness for the others in the room, except for the one guy who barfed on something important and the tipsy chick blabbing to/about her scenebro bf. Totally like a party. I love parties.

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The legendary Accept and also-legendary Overkill played the Best Buy Theater right here in New York City last month, and our homegirl/photographic wizard Alyssa Lorenzon was there to snap pictures, so that you, our beloved readers, could live vicariously through the magic of photography. And in case that epically epic photo of Wolf Hoffmann and Herman Frank didn’t give it away, Alyssa fucking killed it dead, as always. Check out her incredible pics after the jump!

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Breaking news from Tyranny of Tradition;

In a continuing assault on the life and career of President Barack Obama, would-be Presidential candidate Donald Trump accused Obama of being the drummer for the metal band Overkill on the albums “Feel The Fire” and “Taking Over“.  In an interview with syndicated conservative talk radio host Jonathan Winthrop, Trump said “If you look in the liner notes at the first two albums they have someone named Rat Skates listed as the drummer.  That can’t possibly be a real name.  I believe that Barack Obama was playing drums on both of those records.”

This is another in a series of accusations made by Republicans that Obama is, in fact, a “secret metalhead”. The accusations started two months ago when Glenn Beck revealed that Obama was in a thrash band in Chicago while he was working as a community organizer in the mid-1980s.  Beck claimed that Obama’s band “mostly did Coroner and Slayer covers, but a few originals.

And then:

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Not you after today

In the past few years, my group of friends has come to include a bunch of fancy-pants musicians-for-hire. They get majorly paid for backing gigs and session work cuz they execute on their instruments with nuclear precision. And it’s great hanging out with them for their big shot habits of picking up every check and throwing exquisite summer parties. You want that — we all do. But maybe you don’t have the time to, say, top your class at Juilliard or grind out a degree from Berklee. Hey, even if you did, you’d just as soon end up posting internet clips of yourself blasting through BTBAM runs and Hammerfall solos unless you move to West Hollywood and starve for two years. Meh.

Well, here’s good news! You can still get chicks horny and sound good enough for Youtube and hold up to passing scrutiny and possibly even land a gig in a million-selling metal band! Unlike violin, for example, guitar isn’t that hard to fake provided you master picking fast and good pitch on bends. To play Steve Vai, you’d have to match his regimen of 23 daily practice hours; for the following face-melters — ear-friendly, multi-leveled solos every one — all that’s required is like 23 total minutes. Let’s call it the Hammett Workout. Not everybody is “Under A Glass Moon” material, but just approximate these imprecise, jabby solos and I swear you’ll look cool! Check it:

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Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (sometimes) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

Presumably inspired by this week’s announcement of a Big 4 show in the U.S., this week’s question was posed by MetalSucks contributor/author of the Reign in Blood entry into the 33 1/3 book series, D.X. Ferris. Mr. Ferris was even good enough to join us for this edition of QOTW! And his query was:

IF THE BIG FOUR WERE THE BIG EIGHT, WHICH BANDS WOULD BE THE NEXT FOUR IN THE GROUP?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

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Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (sometimes) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

This week’s question was once again suggested by “Hipsters Out of Metal!” columnist Anso DF, and even though the Grammy nominations were actually announced last week, it still seemed like a fun debate to have. So:

WHAT ARE YOUR NOMINATIONS FOR BEST METAL GRAMMY?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

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A little over a week ago, the MetalSucks Photo Pool’s Alyssa Lorenzon braved the sights, smells, and people of New Jersey to go to the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, NJ to capture some awesome mothertruckin’ photos of legendary thrash acts Overkill and Forbidden, along with thrash upstarts Evile and Gama Bomb. As you can see from the above, instant-classic portrait of Bobby Blitz, she captured some killer shit! Check ‘em out the rest of her killer photos after the jump.

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Between-song stage banter reminds me of confronting a dentist’s drill, and I prepare for each similarly: When I know it’s coming, I wince, recoil, and repress a series of violent shudders. Cuz suffering either is just so goddamn painful. Some cats are all intense and bro-brah, just heaping on overly-earnest thanks and generally acting like they’re buttering you up for a loan. Then you have the drill sergeant types, who demand that paying ticketholders jump or say ho or make “a crazy fuckin’ circle pit” or some sort of audience participation that would happen organically for, y’know, a good act. Shut it.

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Because porn star Neesa’s vocal cover of Megadeth’s “Holy Wars” was such a smash hit yesterday, I thought that today we’d wind down with her rendition of Overkill’s “Years of Decay.” She comes across as even more fucknuts than she did in the last video… I don’t really wanna spoil any surprises, but do yourself a favor and watch the entire thing from start to finish.

I will tell you this much: She doesn’t just sing in this clip!

Pretty great, right? Well, I guess she thought she could do better, ’cause then she gave it another try! In her defense, she sounds better in this one; not in her defense, she didn’t give the mannequin’s head a cameo this time out. Bummer.

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There’s so much streamin’ going on right now you’d think a bunch of dudes were peeing on you. So without any further bullshit, here are three complete albums you can listen to right now if you wanna get your metal on:

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Tributes to Dimebag have become a bit passe in 2010 (or really sometime in 2008), but the lads in British thrashers Evile get a pass. For one, their cover of Pantera’s “Cemetery Gates” is awesome — vocalist/guitarist Matt Drake handles Phil Anselmo’s vocals with surprising ease, and the band does the Pantera classic justice in every other way. But then there’s the sad tragedy of bassist Mike Alexander’s sudden death last Fall, and the poetic coda that the last song he ever recorded with the band was a cover of “Cemetery Gates.” If that doesn’t give Evile a license to play this song and devote it to Dime whenever they damn please, nothing does.

Suckalo Jeremy Ruemenapp was on hand at Trees in Dallas a few nights ago to catch Evile covering “Cemetery Gates” during their support slot for Overkill. Check out his video of the performance (with really good video and sound quality!) below.

If you live in the Dallas area you can catch Deftones performing a surprise set on that very same stage tonight at 7pm! Ustream will have a live broadcast of the event, so be sure to tune in at 8pm EDT / 5pm PDT tonight to watch if you can’t attend.

-VN

I guess some metal dudes are annoyed by neo-thrash metal bands like Warbringer, Mantic Ritual, and Municipal Waste. No scene is fun for everyone, so whatever, to each his own and all that. But even if Whorebanger, Spandex Ritual, and Munificent Waste make music of no appeal to your fun-hating ear, frankly, I still insist that you acknowledge their value to metal as a genre. First, each makes music that sounds like five guys making music, which feels great when you’re overwhelmed by metal that sounds like the universe collapsing onto itself (SYL, Emperor), a jet landing in your eye socket (Hate Eternal, Minus’ Jesus Christ Bobby), or mankind’s overthrow by fridge-raiding Nazi robots from the future (Fear Factory). Of course, I love that enormity in metal, especially when it’s the expression of an awareness of Earth’s microscopic significance in the universe. But sometimes it’s more fun to just rock out with a bunch of heshers. That’s good thrash metal. It sounds great at the beach.

And a second and unexpected side effect of neo-thrash’s artistic and commercial successes is their impact on other metal bands. This is all conjecture and surmise, but Municipal Waste’s records are big winners, and now we got a goddamn fucking D.R.I. reunion tour to enjoy. And isn’t it reasonable to conclude that Warbringer’s success would provide a shot of confidence and vigor to elder thrash bands, like fucking awesome Overkill? If you’ve heard their excellent 238th record, Ironbound, you know it’s all energetic and snappy metal (normal for them), but also that it’s their most unabashedly thrashy record in forever. And few deserve wallet-love as much as Overkill, who, contrary to their name, exemplify the unpretentious hesher approach. (See The Years Of Decay‘s “I Hate” which features gang vocals that sound like six dirtballs hollering out the back of a van, not a million-strong army of angry mutant outcasts, like say “Hook In Mouth” by Megadeth.) Big sales or not, Overkill did their part and made a metal record to be reckoned with. For this, we can thank the best neo-thrash bands and fans. For the best parts of neo-thrash, we can thank Overkill.

-ADF

Although at first glance at this photo makes it appear as though Ol Drake is stroking a massive hard-on, that’s actually a garbage bin just behind him. Alas, he was not that excited to be speaking with Axl Rosenberg.

Whatever the hell it is we’re calling Evile’s particular metallica subgenre these days – retro thrash, rethrash, nu thrash, or just plain old motherfucking thrash – they’re one of the better bands playing it right now. Like only a handful of their peers, they really seem to “get” the music – and so while their roots as a Metallica cover band might show, it doesn’t really matter ’cause, well, who can think about that shit while headbanging so damn hard?

It’s been a tumultuous time for the band as of late – founding bassist Mike Alexander passed away in October of last year – but they’ve managed to persevere, and now find themselves doing pretty much the best first North American tour any non-American (in this case, British) band could hope for: playing support for Kreator along with Voivod, Nachtmystium, and Lazarus A.D. And as if that wasn’t enough, almost immediately thereafter they hit the road with Overkill. Sheesh.

Following the band’s gig here in New York last weekend, I got to speak with guitarist Ol Drake, who, despite his almost Heavy Metal Muppet-ish appearance, is a very cordial, soft-spoken gentleman. After the jump, get Ol’s thoughts on playing the States for the first time, why it’s taken them so damn long to get here, new bassist Joel Graham, the status of the next Evile record, and more.

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So Overkill’s new album, Ironbound, was released yesterday on E1, and they’re pulling out all the stops to promote it: the entire album is streaming here, and the first video from the record, for the song “Bring Me the Night,” is after the jump. I assumed that song was about was about Bobby Blitz being really angry about how terrible The Happening was, but I guess it’s actually about standing in front of a wall of big lights. Which is understandable. I wouldn’t be able to sleep if there was all that light in the room, either.

And so, the clip:

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Last year, I got way too busy with this thing called life and ignored this other thing called metal. As a result, I missed out on a lot of quality music as was evidenced by my paltry contribution to the year-end MetalSucks Best Of 2009 lists.

I am here to rectify the error of my ways, month by month.

Here are the January 2010 releases that got under my skin, burrowed their way into my brain, made my ears bleed, or simply tickled my unmentionables:

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