Review by UnhinderedbyTalent for Overkill (US-NJ) - Horrorscope (1991)

In the grander scheme of things, despite a career spanning nearly forty years and with my metal listening years fast approaching thirty, I only really started to get on with Overkill from about 2014.  White Devil Armory received enough praise amongst peers for me to give it a whirl when previous attempts to engage with the band had been unsuccessful due to me not instantly getting along with Bobby's vocal style.  Slowly but surely I began to unravel their vast and varied discography, picking my favourites and dismissing the less appealing releases over the past five or six years.

Horrorscope  sits atop the pile of favourites.  I find it one of the most consistent thrash metal albums in my collection if I am honest, perhaps even the most consistent of all.  Surprisingly for me it is not an album that goes near the extremity of my preferred end of the thrash spectrum.  The album is surprisingly accessible and catchy to find in my collection (considering that the likes of Condor and Sadus adorn my shelves as regular plays).  I am a sucker for real chuggin' riffs and that motor engine like efficiency to the riffs on this album just pull me right in.

In terms of the aforementioned consistency they maintain this for eleven tracks which is no mean feat.  Even the cover track doesn't trip the record up.  It just feels full of running still even as it draws to a close.  This was the final album before the groove elements started to creep into the band's sound and to be fair if you manage to achieve a great album like this then it is forgivable to try something new on future releases, although it wasn't as successful admittedly.  I hear melody on Horrorscope as opposed to any real groove influence entering the fray and it is on these more obvious melodic moments such as New Machine that the record loses a bit of entertainment unfortunately.  Not devastating but enough to keep the record away from a full five stars at least.