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Eccomi a recensire uno dei migliori dischi thrash metal degli anni '80.
"The Years Of Decay" esce nel 1989 anno in cui le piu' grandi band del genere avevano gia' dato alle stampe i loro capolavori. Sono anni di stallo per il genere alla ricerca di nuovi gruppi per alimentare una scena che come dicevo sembrava aver già dato il meglio. Gli Overkill sono al loro quarto disco (senza contare 2 EP) e reduci da un album di buona fattura come "Under The Influence". La formazione è la stessa del disco precedente che vedeva Bobby Blitz Ellsword alla voce, D.D. Verni al basso, Bobby Gustafson alle chitarre e Sid Falck alla Batteria. Prodotto da Terry Date l'album è un miscuglio del meglio dell'"Overkill sound". L'opener è l'anthemica "Time To Kill" un power thrash con la voce al vetriolo di Blitz a farla da padrone e con un rallentamento quasi doom nel mezzo. Il secondo pezzo "Elimination" è sulla falsa riga della prima traccia. "I Hate" è molto semplice nella sua struttura quasi punkeggiante sia nei riff di chitarra del bravo Gustafson che nei cori.
"Nothing To Die For" è una classicissima Thrash song tipica della Bay-area quindi riconducibile ai Metallica del periodo "Master of Puppets". La prima vera sorpresa arriva alla traccia numero cinque con il Thrash-Doom di "Playing With Spiders/Skullkrusher", canzone lenta e cadenzata nella prima e ultima parte con un intermezzo speed . In "Birth Of Tension" in primo piano il basso di D.D. VERNI, mentre gli otto minuti di "Who Tends The Fire" si aprono con un lungo arpeggio che culminerà in un'altra canzone lenta e sabbathiana. Ma i due pezzi da novanta del disco sono posizionati alla fine: un melodico arpeggio di chitarra unito alla voce altrettanto melodica di Blitz aprono la superba "The Years Of Decay" che si incattivisce con il proseguire dei minuti, anche questa track tocca gli otto minuti. Il gran finale è affidato a "E.Vil N.Ever D.Ies", un thrash da spacca ossa in sede live, ancora un plauso a Gustafson alla chitarra, per questa canzone torrenziale infarcita di cambi di tempo e guidata ancora una volta dalla voce tipo carta vetrata di Blitz.
Con questo disco gli Overkill salutano gli anni '80 consci di meritare sicuramente un posto subito dietro alle quattro grandi band del thrash americano, anche se io al posto dei Megadeth metterei volentieri loro.
Elenco tracce testi samples e video
02 Elimination (04:35)
Terminal
What disease
You told me too late
What's this cough and wheeze
Fatal
You're shittin' me
A second opinion
Is what I need
Laughin' in a windstorm
Blowin' all the cornstalks down
Cryin' in a funeral home
Forward my mail, six feet underground
Elimination (x4)
Contagious
Say why not
Not just me
Waitin' to rot
Painful
Yeah I know
It couldn't be easy
When I had to go
I'm yankin' on the plug
And I can't seem to get it loose
Pullin' all the stops
Your ideals change
When you got nothing to lose.
Elimination (x4)
Eliminate the right
Eliminate the wrong
Eliminate the weak
Eliminate the strong
Eliminate your feelings
Eliminate too late
Eliminate the hope
Eliminate, eliminate
If I had just one more day
I'd turn it all around
I'd make a play of good, clean livin'
And dig me out of the ground
And if I had just one more day
I'd say it to your face
I'd pull the plug on everyone
Eliminate this race.
We want the cure
And we want it now
Reissue hope
We don't care how
You're makin' a mess
Diseasin' a nation
Runaway train to elimination
Hopeless
There's no doubt
Set on a slow burn
From the inside out
Careful
What for
Last one out
Closes the coffin door
Spendin' all you saved
And wishin' for a little more
If i'm lookin' at the ceiling
Then I must be layin' on the floor.
Elimination (x4)
Terminal
What disease
You told me too late
What's this cough and wheeze
Fatal
You're shittin' me
A second opinion
There's gotta be
Laughin' at the epidemic
Something is going around
Crying at the epidemic
Pullin' on nails, six feet underground.
Elimination (x4)
Eliminate the right
Eliminate the wrong
Eliminate the weak
Eliminate the strong
Eliminate your feelings
Eliminate too late
Eliminate the hope
Eliminate, eliminate
Elimination (x4)
Eliminate the right
Eliminate the wrong
Eliminate the weak
Eliminate the strong
Eliminate your feelings
Eliminate too late
Eliminate the hope
Eliminate, eliminate
04 Nothing to Die For (04:22)
Old enough to know better
Too young to care
Bent on self destruction
Goin' nowhere
If I had a reason
I could make it work for me
If I had an answer
It wouldn't be so hard to see
Feelin' all just the same
Feelin' all like no pain
Goin' on down the drain
Make my own decisions
Just go away
Take the consequences
Just not today
Got enough reasons
Still not workin' for me
Got all the answers
Still so hard to see
Somethin' is confusin' me
Somethin' is abusin' me
Somethin' is refusin' me
Life
Let me live
I wanna give
I've been to hell and back
So many times before
Take me there
I don't care where
And show me why
There's nothing to die for too
Old enough to know better
Too dead to change
Went in with a full deck
Goin' out deranged
I had all the reasons
Tried, it didn't work for me
I had all the answers
I was too blind to see
Mirror man in my eye
Mirror man gonna cry
Mirror man make you die
Let me live
I wanna give
I've been to hell and back
So many times before
Take me there
I don't care where
And show me why
There's nothing to die for too
06 Birth of Tension (05:04)
You are killin' me
Mouth is movin' but I cannot hear you speak
Life's a tragedy
Go on livin' in a world not for the weak
Keep your dreams inside your heart
Never let the pressure tear you apart
Truth is whispered on a breath
Loud enough to cover the smell of death
Never thought too important to mention
Livin' with the birth, the birth of tension
Never thought too important to mention
Livin' with the tension, tension, tension
Don't you understand
Too much tension, snap
Then you lose your grip
Too many demands
Start at birth, snap
From the womb you're ripped
Leave your dreams inside behind
Never had a reason that you'll never find
Tension builds another way
Gonna make you all go away
Never thought too important to mention
Livin' with the birth, the birth of tension
Never thought too important to mention
Livin' with the tension, tension, tension
Too much tension, all around
Too much tension, bring you down
All the pressures in the narrow mind
All the reasons you'll never find
Did you kill your father
Sleep with your mother
Idolize your sister
Were you jealous of your brother
Did ya kick the dog
Were you beat a strap
Were you really be abused
Were you fakin' all that
Too tense
You are killin' me
Many ways so little time to think
Life's catastrophe
Glass empty and I really need a drink
Movin' all so very quick
Movin' so fast that its gets me sick
Let me outta here
Livin' ain't livin' with the tension and the fear
Never thought too important to mention
Livin' with the birth, the birth of tension
Never thought too important to mention
Livin' with the tension, tension, tension
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Altre recensioni
Di Hellring
Vero elemento caratterizzante della musica degli Overkill è la voce di Ellsworth, talmente "bambinesca" e incazzata da risultare unica nell'intero orizzonte del metal.
Un album che rimane comunque positivo, sebbene gli Overkill avessero già dimostrato in passato di saper fare di meglio, cosa che accadrà anche in futuro.
