Overkill-Horrorscope, 1991

I loved a lot of speed metal bands back between say 86-93. However not all of them have aged well, at least not according to my ears. Now don't think that I am getting old and can't tolerate the speed or heaviness although I may be getting old. It's actually that I have become a little more particular and some of these bands just sound a bit too generic now. Of course there are plenty of them that have actually managed to age well. By 1991 Overkill were set to release the follow up to their 1989 album "The years of decay" which was great and did well. The band also went through a major line-up change between 89 and 91. Long time guitarist Bobby Gustafson was gone and stories vary about whether he quit or was fired. The band decided to go with the popular trend and bring in not one, but two guitarists to replace him. I was hesitant about the new line-up because Gustafson could shred and he had gotten better with each album. However it took about two minutes of the opening track "Coma" to convince me that there was life after Gustafson. Horrorscope is overall like a controlled frenzy in that it's full of blazing riffs and pounding beats, but there are plenty of hooks to make it interesting and those hooks were not as strong on Overkill's earlier efforts. This is one of those albums that still makes me bang my head and an old geezer like me doesn't do that for just any album. Everything about this album is just so dead on.The band have had a great career, but this will go down as their greatest moment for sure. It's easily as much of a killer today as it was when I first it in the summer of 1991. Favorite tracks include Coma, Infectious, New Machine and Blood Money which might very be the single best track this band has ever done.