Now, Overkill completely owned your ass with the mindblowing debut album Feel The Fire. The follow-up Taking Over is nearly as good, and takes the songwriting up to another level of intensity.Taking Over is like the debut straight up thrash metal, with insanely catchy and very memorable songwriting and a good awareness of melody. But on this album, they reach higher extremes, and the very first song (Deny The Cross) is heavier and thrashier than anything on Feel The Fire, and also heavier and thrashier than anything they did on the two albums that followed this one.So the album is pretty much Feel The Fire cranked up another notch, and this provides a whole lot of headbanging fun with menacing thrash riffs galore.What also makes this a kickass album is the vocals of Bobby 'Blitz' Ellsworth, who in my opinion provides his best performance ever on this one. It's raw, vicious, untamed and absolutely insane. Check out those fucking screams he pulls off on songs like Wrecking C rew: "Light the sky, in the night!" Man, I don't think I ever heard a thrash vocalist scream like that before.His vocal style on some songs is pretty strange and takes a while to appreciate (most notably Powersurge) but it's really fucking good, and he adds an extra touch to of madness to the album, which is a welcome thing.
Taking Over is indeed a worthy follow-up to the awesome debut. Right from the start, we get two of their best songs ever: Deny The Cross and Wrecking Crew.Featuring the two greatest riffs on here, they're bound to get your fucking head banging like never before, while you're struggling to catch your breath so you can sing along to Blitz' menacingly catchy vocal lines ("Destruction is a way of life!"). Yes, Overkill kick in with maximum ownage from the start.And while none of the other songs are quite as awesome as the first two, there are no weaker tunes on here.Fear His Name is somewhat slower and has a quite epic feeling to it, and is a very good song, though probably the weakest on here. Use Your Head, the bizarrely sexual Fatal if Swallowed and the mosh-encouraging (both musically and lyrically) Electro-Violence are all mindblowing, violent thrashers of damn fine quality, all sounding very different in terms of songwriting, and each being more vicious than the last one .The most interesting track on here I'd say is In Union We Stand, which is like the thrash version of Take On The World. Menacing fast-paced riffwork drive forth a midtempo drum beat which serves for some awesome headbanging - and on top of it, we have the powerful and nearly anthemic vocals, leading into one big singalong chorus. Fuck yeah, that one's awesome - definitely another highlight.And of course, the second part of the Overkill trilogy: The Nightmare Continues. Not as good as the first, but still quite awesome, with that monstrously thrashy main riff and the evil-as-Satan middle section ("Slow and sure, a beating hart - Sure to have, the killing starts") as standout factors.
Ladies and gentlemen- if you like thrash, you just can't go wrong with this baby. It's no Feel The Fire, but it's pretty fucking close. The production is also clearer yet even more violent and intense than on its predecessor, and the songwriting as well is even more menacing than on the debut, while remaining just as catchy and memorable. This is real metal, people. Every second of the album is a solid kick in the face- everything from the melodic leads of Use Your Head to the bass intro ditty on Powersurge to the insane thrash riffage of Electro-Violence, this will either kill you, or own you to death. In either case, your corpse will rise from its grave to headbang.
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