Overkill - ReliXIV (LP) - Yellow w/ Orange & Black Splatter Vinyl

By 2005, plenty of thrash veterans were leaning on nostalgia, but Overkill were still swinging like the New Jersey bar band that wouldn’t leave the stage. ReliXIV landed that year through Spitfire in the States and Regain in Europe, and it feels like a proper sharpening of the knives after Killbox 13. It’s also the last studio outing with drummer Tim Mallare, whose precision and grit had anchored the band since the early 90s. You can hear him driving the whole machine forward, tight and hard, the way these songs demand.

The lineup here is classic latter‑era Overkill. Bobby Blitz Ellsworth spits lines with that rasp that somehow sounds amused and furious at the same time. D.D. Verni’s bass has that clangy, piston-like thud that has always made Overkill vinyl feel physically heavier on the turntable. Dave Linsk on lead and Derek Tailer on rhythm tighten the screws with riffs that never forget the street, even when they flirt with speed metal bravado. It’s a lean, efficient record that doesn’t overthink the job. Ten tracks, all bite, no bloat.

Within Your Eyes opens the account with a meaty chug and a hook that actually sticks. Overkill have long had a knack for chorus writing that other thrash outfits sometimes ignore, and that ear for a shoutable line pays off here. Love keeps it mid‑tempo and nasty, a neck-snapper built on a simple, mean groove. Bats in the Belfry is the fast one people tend to point to, all skittering pick work and Blitz in full bark, and it still sounds like something that could rip a club set in half. A Pound of Flesh leans into a stomping cadence that nods to the band’s 90s work without getting bogged down in it.

Then there’s Old School, which has since become a live favourite for obvious reasons. It’s a beer‑hoisting tribute to the dirty fun of the scene, loaded with gang vocals and a grin you can hear from the first bar. When people talk about ReliXIV as a bridge to the second wind that brought Ironbound a few years later, this is the song they often mean. It’s cheeky, it’s proud, and it goes down like a set closer you’ve been waiting for all night.

Production wise, ReliXIV stays out of the way. The guitars are crisp rather than huge, the drums snap rather than boom, and the bass is allowed to be percussive. It suits the material. Overkill have rarely chased modern gloss, and this mix puts the band in the room with you. Mallare’s kick patterns are clear, Verni sits right under them, and the twin guitar setup feels wired tight. If you’ve only heard it on streaming, a decent pressing adds a little air around the kit and gives Blitz’s voice more bite. If you see ReliXIV vinyl on the shelf, grab it. As with a lot of Overkill albums on vinyl, the artwork pops, the low end fattens up, and the whole thing makes more sense at neighbour‑angering volume.

ReliXIV sits neatly in their catalogue. It follows the scrappy urgency of Killbox 13 and sets the table for the revitalised charge of Immortalis and then Ironbound. There is no reinvention here, but there is focus, and that matters when you’ve been at it since the mid‑80s. What keeps it compelling is the sense that the band still enjoys the fight. Blitz tosses out wry asides like a front bar raconteur, the riffs strut rather than brood, and Mallare punctuates phrases with a drummer’s grin you can almost see.

If you’re crate‑digging in a Melbourne record store, ReliXIV is the sort of sleeper you pull because the green skullbat on the cover catches your eye, then you get it home and wonder why it is not talked about more often. Fans who only know the early landmarks like The Years of Decay will hear the throughline immediately. The DNA is intact, just trimmed and hardened by decades of stage time. For collectors, it is a tidy way to round out an Overkill run, whether you buy Overkill records online or keep it old school and hunt in person. Search terms be damned, Overkill vinyl still hits different.

In the crowded mid‑2000s metal landscape, ReliXIV did not make grand headlines, but it did what Overkill do best. It delivered songs that swing, snap and snarl, played by lifers who never stopped putting in the miles. That reliability is a virtue, and on the right system, ReliXIV vinyl makes the case as well as anything they released in that era. If you’re building out a shelf of vinyl records Australia wide and you want something that pairs a classic thrash attitude with road‑tested songwriting, this one earns its spot.