UMUR "Scorched" is the twenty-first full-length studio album by US, New York based thrash/heavy metal act Overkill. The album was released through Nuclear Blast in April 2023. It´s the successor to "The Wings Of War" from February 2019. Overkill ususally have 2-3 years between album releases (with a good portion of touring in between), but the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown made the writing and recording process for "Scorched" a little longer than usual.

Stylistically you won´t notice any difference though as "Scorched" sounds unmistakably like another post-"Ironbound" (2010) album release from Overkill. Hard edged, groove laden, and attitude loaded thrash metal with nods towards traditional heavy metal and speed metal. Lead vocalist Bobby "Blitz" Ellsworth as always screams his lungs out with his raw sounding voice and snarling attitude while the band delivers a tight instrumental performance behind him.

The album opens with the title track, which features a lead guitar theme performed by Dave Links, which makes me think of AC/DC´s "Thunderstruck", and it´s definitely a standout track on the album. "Scorched" is otherwise not an album featuring many standout tracks, but it´s still a high quality album throughout and there are only a few tracks I´d say are close to the filler catagory, and those tracks are still good quality tracks, because of the generally high quality output of Overkill.

"Scorched" is well produced, featuring a clear, detailed, and powerful sounding production job, which suits the material well. Upon conclusion "Scorched" worst crime is probably that it sounds a lot like the last 5-6 albums from Overkill, but if you haven´t gotten used to the consistency (or if you put on the negative glasses...the stagnation) of the band´s sound by now, you probably never will. A 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating is deserved.

Kev Rowland It is strange to think that even though they did not record their debut album until 1985, Overkill actually predate the Big 4 of Thrash, and still have two of their founders in the band. One always knows what to expect with these guys as they found their style early, and have never moved too far away from that, being so influenced by Motörhead that they used to play many covers in the early days as well as taking their name from the band. Mind you, they have always been somewhat more melodic while Bobby Ellsworth has always had a great set of pipes and shows no sign at all of slowing down even though he is in his sixties now.

As with all bands, their plans were disrupted due to Covid as they originally intended to record the follow-up to ‘The Wings of War’ in 2020 and release it the following year, but that didn’t happen and due to many factors it took until April 2023 for this to finally see the light of the day, but long-time fans will be pleased to know there has been no change in style in the intervening years. Another joy is the production which is crunching and old-fashioned and I was not surprised to discover Colin Richardson had mixed this, as he has always had a great understanding of what to do with heavy music and is still one of the best around.

As for the music? It’s Overkill, so if you have any of their albums then you know what this is like, thrash which is influenced heavily by NWOBHM, loads of melody and riffs all fronted by a powering singer. Is this earth shattering? No, not really. Is it as good as 2017’s ‘The Grinding Wheel’? Probably not but is still a heck of a lot of fun all the same and long may they continue.