“Itap been a f***ing long time, motherf***ers!” shrilled lead man D.D. Verni to the Denver audience of almost 300 at on Tuesday night. His candor helped to galvanize the tiredly drunk, black-concert-T-shirt-wearing, X-chromosomed militia into pledging their allegiance — which they did by shouting similar expletives while pumping their devil-horned fingers into the air.
New Jersey-based Overkill knows how to bring the noise and their fifteenth studio album release, “Ironbound” continues to solidify them as the best in the sub, sub category of American thrash metal bands on the East Coast.
Delineating themselves for the past three decades from their metal colleagues with their overly angst-ridden lyrics and blast beat guitar style, Overkill continues to assault with a battery of concise songs flaunting advanced tempo transitions, wildly proficient drumming and an overall alacrity that is undeniable in a genre that refuses to sacrifice either precision or speed.
Throughout the dozen or so songs performed from Overkill’s canon, Verni textured his performance with series of hand motions that were largely indecipherable to me — and not unlike the gesticulations of a third base coach — but each time they were thrown down, the crowd roared with understanding and approval.
There were other confounding moments: The gel-happy lighting tech saw nothing wrong with blinding us with a relentless strobe show. A sad little mosh pit proved itself to be unnecessary, never gaining full momentum — no doubt the fault of the poorly chosen, cabaret-style seating arrangement. And finally, a sort of audience mob mentality took hold as they set to simultaneous booing and jeering of the band between songs, as if they were worried they might not get their fill of malady for the evening.
As the definition of the band names implies, Overkill is not known for its good judgment. Their zeal for excessiveness clearly obfuscates sounder performance choices. But for metalheads who buck the barometer and go for the bigger, better, faster, more formula, I know they would say the show totally slayed it.
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Kate Lacroix is a Denver-based writer and regular contributor to Reverb. Check out .
