Review by Saxy S for Overkill (US-NJ) - Feel the Fire (1985)

In hindsight, if the big four had been expanded, you could make a legitimate claim that Overkill would be the group most deserving of a potential fifth spot. Their legacy is well established over forty years and have been releasing some high quality, old school thrashers on a relatively consistent basis over that time. And let's not forget this bands 1989 album The Years of Decay, which is a true classic in the genre in all senses of that word.

I say all of this in preface because I don't really care for the bands debut album, Feel the Fire. And when I some time to think about why that is, the answer is quite simple. The quality of what's inside is very rugged. In all honesty, it's many of the same issues that I had with Metallica's debut album Kill 'Em All from 1983. But even by that comparison, Metallica's album did feel well performed. With this album...I don't know; there are plenty of instances on songs like "Raise The Dead", "Rotten To The Core", "Second Son" and "Kill At Command" in which the band sounds like they are just about to fall apart with the tempo changes. And I don't mean that in a positive, progressive usage. These tempo changes sound like mistakes that were stapled together in post-production instead of getting the group to play it again and pray the drummer is using a click track. "Overkill" manages the transitions with a bit more fluidity, but those moments are sparse on this record.

The album also suffers from some really cheap sounding production. I know this is early 80s thrash: "iT's nOt sUppOsEd tO bE pOlIsHeD!" I hear you say. But the guitars are consistently peaking in the mix on side B, the bass presence is painfully absent outside a handful of small bursts, and the bass drum is mixed way too close to the front, which does drown out even the guitar riffage when heading into a double kick passage. When the riffs are audible, they sound fine, and I did not mind the band doing their own version of "Hit The Lights" on "Blood And Iron". The vocals are quite spectacular from a pure performance standpoint. The quasi sung/scream vocals of Blitz are very cool, even if his nasally vocal timbre can be an acquired taste. And he balances it out with some vicious howls like the outro of "Raise The Dead". As for the hooks themselves, there are some solid standouts, most notably "Hammerhead" and "There's No Tomorrow".

Here's the thing about Feel the Fire: many of my criticism's about this album are based off the fact that I have heard better, including from Overkill, thrash metal records in the years after 1985. And as I have said before, judging a bands debut LP to later albums is unfair. So if you are in the mood for some good old fashion thrashing, then Feel the Fire will probably be just the burn you're looking for. However, even by those standards, this does not even stand up favorably to the debut records from Metallica or Slayer from a couple years earlier. For as messy as those albums are, at least Show No Mercy and Kill 'Em All were produced better, and the hooks were more pronounced.