Today in Metal: Overkill – “The Years of Decay”

Some thrash albums hit you with speed from the first second. Others know exactly when to slow down and make the riffs feel even heavier. Overkill’s “The Years of Decay” did both.

Released on October 13th, 1989, through Atlantic and Megaforce Records, the band’s fourth studio album showed a different side of Overkill. The speed and aggression were still there, but this time the band made room for darker moods, longer songs and riffs that owed something to Black Sabbath.

The result was one of Overkill most important albums and the last to feature guitarist Bobby Gustafson.

Overkill Went Beyond Speed

After “Under the Influence” Overkill wanted a guitar sound with more weight and clarity. Terry Date took over production duties and delivered the tone the band had been looking for.

Gustafson had been unhappy with the previous album dry guitar sound. As he explained, the band had struggled to find the right balance on earlier records. With Date behind the controls, things finally clicked.

The guitars sound huge, the rhythm section keeps everything moving and Bobby “Blitz” Ellsworth gives the songs plenty of bite. But the real difference is how much ground the album covers.

“Time to Kill” gets things moving with an aggressive thrash attack. “Elimination” brings a catchy, fast rhythm that made it a live favorite. “I Hate” is short, raw and full of attitude.

Then Overkill takes a different path.

Ten Minutes of Black Sabbath-Inspired Darkness

“Playing with Spiders / Skullkrusher” is the album big statement. At over ten minutes it’s a slow, heavy monster built around doom laden riffs rather than nonstop speed.

Blitz has cited Black Sabbath as an influence on the band decision to write longer songs and you can hear why. The track gives the riffs room to breathe makes its weight instead of rushing toward the next blast of speed.

The title track takes another darker turn. “The Years of Decay” closes the album main conceptual flow with a dramatic, almost haunting atmosphere.

This wasn’t Overkill abandoning thrash. They were showing how much more they could do with it.

The Hit That Almost Didn’t Make the Album

It’s hard to imagine “The Years of Decay” without “Elimination”. The song became one of Overkill best-known tracks, helped by heavy rotation on MTV’s Headbangers Ball.

But the track was reportedly finished at the last minute and nearly left off the album.

That makes its success even better. Sometimes a song that almost doesn’t make the cut ends up becoming one of the tracks fans demand to hear live.

The album also closes with “E.vil N.ever D.ies” the fourth part of Overkill self-titled song storyline. Instead of calling it “Overkill IV” the band hid the connection in the title’s initials: E.N.D.

The storyline wouldn’t continue until “Immortalis” in 2007.

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The End of the Bobby Gustafson Era

There’s another reason this album stands apart: it’s the last Overkill record to feature Bobby Gustafson.

Gustafson played all the rhythm and lead guitar parts himself on the album, helping create that thick, layered sound. But tensions between him and the band founding members, Blitz and bassist D.D. Verni, led to his departure around the end of this era. Accounts differ on whether he left or was fired.

Overkill would move forward with a two-guitarist lineup after his departure, but his work on “The Years of Decay” remains a defining part of the band sound.

The lineup here was Blitz on vocals, D.D. Verni on bass, Gustafson on guitars and Sid Falck on drums.

Chaly, Darker Lyrics and a Lasting Legacy

The cover features Chaly, Overkill green-eyed skull mascot, surrounded by burning torches, stone structures and bat wings. It fits an album that moved away from some of the usual metal lifestyle themes and into darker territory.

The lyrics explore subjects such as illness, depression, isolation and abuse. The music is in that mood, changing from frantic thrash to slow, crushing passages.

Terry Date production would also become part of a bigger metal story. His work on “The Years of Decay” has been linked to the heavier direction Pantera took before “Cowboys from Hell”, which Date later produced.

More than just a collection of fast songs “The Years of Decay” gave Overkill room to be aggressive, heavy and dark without losing their identity.

Is “The Years of Decay” Overkill greatest album or does another record take the crown?