GMD Poll: Overkill's Discography Ranked

[crimsonfloyd]

Directions: Rank Overkill's studio albums. Order and number each album 1-18. Ties are OK. Your first place album earns 18 points, your second place album earns 17 points, etc.

Rules:

• You may rank as few as 9 albums. Lists with less than 9 albums will not be counted.
• If you list less than 18 albums, the first placed album will still get 18 points, the last placed album will still get 1 point, and the albums in between will have points distributed proportionately. The average points earned for albums that are not listed will not be impacted positively or negatively, so if you don't rank an album, you neither help it or hurt it.
• If you have fewer than 100 posts on the forum, you may vote, but your vote will not be counted (The TechnicalBarbarity Rule)

At the end, the albums will be ranked based on their average number of points per vote.

You have until Saturday June 2nd to finalize your list, re-familiarize yourself albums you haven’t heard in awhile, familiarize yourself with albums you haven’t heard at all, lobby for any albums you think are underrated, and lobby against any albums you think are overrated.

And please, no pseudo-Machiavelli shit. Just rank them as you see them.

Albums:
Feel the Fire (1985)
Taking Over (1987)
Under the Influence (1988)
The Years of Decay (1989)
Horrorscope (1991)
I Hear Black (1993)
W.F.O. (1994)
The Killing Kind (1996)
From the Underground and Below (1997)
Necroshine (1999)
Bloodletting (2000)
Killbox 13 (2003)
ReliXIV (2005)
Immortals (2007)
Ironbound (2010)
The Electric Age (2012)
White Devil Armory (2014)
The Grinding Wheel (2017)

 

[HamburgerBoy]

1. Feel the Fire - a masterpiece of old-school energy and fun, 10/10
2. Horrorscope - the greatest thrash-band-with-a-major-label-recording-budget-in-the-early-90s album ever, heavy as fuck but delivers one hit after another, 9/10
3. The Years of Decay - it apes Metallica too closely at times but that doesn't bother me as much anymore, 7/10
4. Ironbound - great comeback with some of their most involved/lengthy writing since Years, slightly overlong at worst, 7/10
5. From the Underground and Below - Overkill incorporates some contemporary influences and nails it, the groove and stoner/doom and industrial-lite and thrash all flow seamlessly, and there isn't one song less than solid, their Low basically, 7/10
6. Taking Over - inconsistent and has a bit of the leftovers effect, and the production is a little tinny, but still some very good stuff here, 6/10
7. Killbox 13 - like ReliXIV but a slightly higher low ("Damned") and better production, 5/10
8. W.F.O. - starts bland but gradually gets stronger up to the end, 5/10
9. I Hear Black - a few too many stoner/doom songs but some of those are decent, 5/10
10. ReliXIV - actually reasonably solid aside from Love which is one of their worst songs, 5/10
11. White Devil Armory - improvement on The Electric Age, more ideas here even if it's overall pretty standard, 5/10
12. The Killing Kind - probably the Overkill album I've heard least, but while there is some obnoxious garbage here, there are these brief weird/different parts peppered over that actually work, as well as some fun straight-forward tuffguy groove, 5/10
13. Immortalis - forgettable but they have worse, 4/10
14. Under the Influence - opens with two of their very worst songs and the riffs are overall pretty bland, but even it manages a couple highlights, 3/10
15. Bloodletting - this one isn't holding up, strong opener which has stuck with me over the years, but the predominant groove lacks intensity and often comes off as butt metal, 3/10
16. The Electric Age - not exactly terrible but very monotonous, Ironbound did retro perfectly, this one is a lazy throwback, 3/10
17. The Grinding Wheel - the issues of The Electric Age but with an Ironbound runtime, eek, 2/10
18. Necroshine - not the abortion I used to think it was, but still bad, way too much buttrock Southern garbage here, 2/10

Preliminary list, probably won't make a big difference in the grand scheme of the ratings, but I need to revisit Necroshine through Immortalis.

 

[Krow]

Don’t know if I want to do this one or not. I may just do the minimum. That 93-05 stretch makes me feel pretty not confident.

 

[crimsonfloyd]

I got a head start on this band's discography and I'm really enjoying the first four albums. Bobby Blitz Ellsworth is already one of my favorite thrash singers. Wish I started listening to this band earlier. That said, I’m kind of dreading the mid era that has low scores on RYM and is described as groove...

 

[Slammed]

That said, I’m kind of dreading the mid era that has low scores on RYM and is described as groove...

Overkill are a bit like AC/DC they found a formula and stuck with it, from what I remember of the catalogue there is not a lot of change album to album and while the mid years are not their greatest time I wouldn't have really considered them groove. Although I don't agree with half the ratings and genre classifications on RYM. I'll have to listen to a few again but I remember them being very consistent with each album sounding a lot like's it's predecessor and always unmistakably Overkill.

 

[Talos of Atmora]

OK, we're on a ranking I care about. Good. I have to revisit much of their post-'97 material (with the exception of Ironbound) though.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I'd say Overkill changed their sound a bit, though nothing nearly as drastic as a Risk or Endorama or whatever. Their groove metal content tends towards a sort of Southern/stonery/bluesy metal kind rather than the straight aggro kind, it's not my favorite period of theirs but some of it is still pretty good.

 

[Bloopy]

Probably the toughest one of these I've tackled yet. I started early and listened through the lot and still wasn't sure of the order I came up with. Bobby's vocals help with keeping the lesser stuff entertaining.

 

[Bloopy]

1. Horrorscope
2. The Years of Decay
3. Under the Influence
4. The Grinding Wheel
5. The Killing Kind
6. Taking Over
7. Feel the Fire
8. White Devil Armory
9. Ironbound
10. The Electric Age
11. From the Underground and Below
12. ReliXIV
13. W.F.O.
14. Necroshine
15. I Hear Black
16. Killbox 13
17. Immortalis
18. Bloodletting

A few like W.F.O.and Ironbound came out lower than I would've guessed, but it's all pretty listenable really.

 

[Slammed]

^ Mines looking a little bit like that at the moment but I've still got another few to re-listen to before I finalise a list

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Horrorscope is definitely a fantastic album.

 

[The Ozzman]

We should hurry this up so we can get to Morbid Angel tbh.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Overkill is a far greater band than Morbid Angel.

 

[Satanstoenail]

1. Horrorscope

 

[Phylactery]

Overkill is a far greater band than Morbid Angel.

Overkill is good, but let’s not pretend they recorded anything on par with the first two Morbid Angel!

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Let's not pretend that Blessed are the Sick is anything more than a middling sophomore slump filled with bland death/thrash, or that Altars of Madness isn't top-heavy and features more than a few songs that can put up a fight against Overkill's best.

 

[Phylactery]

Blessed are the Sick is easily among the best death metal records ever, but you clearly have a huge issue with that album so it's not worth discussing.

Altars is barely top-heavy imo. I agree the first half is slightly stronger but only due to the second half having the weakest track ("Blasphemy"). It has shit like "Damnation" and "Evil Spells" which are great fucking songs. I know some people point to "Bleed for the Devil" as the weakest track, but fuck if it isn't one of most dizzying and intense songs for its time period! Savage violence punctuated with those sick blasts. I fucking love it.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

tbf it's not that Altar's B-side is bad, the worst parts are still a hair above average, it's just not fantastic like Immortal Rites and Visions from the Dark Side are.

 

[The Ozzman]

Covenant master race

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Half the songs on that album are the death metal equivalent to this:



multiple Overkill albums >>> A > F = some more Overkill albums >>> G > C > B >>> D = I > a hypothetical Overkill worst-of compilation > H