Overdrive - Let The Metal Do The Talking

Published February 08 2008

*=Staff's pick	Army Of Darkness Let The Metal Do The Talking* Fight To The Finish* Bring Me To Submission Trapped Under Ice Deceived Den Of Iniquity (Instrumental) Gravy Train Chasing Highways Lodestar Sinister Warfare Reincarnation

Genre	Heavy Metal	Per Karlsson	Vocals
Tracks	12	Janne Stark	Guitar
Runningtime	53 Min.	Kjell Jacobsson	Guitar
Label	Lion Music	Kenth Eriksson	Bass
Release	27 Jan. 2008	Kenta Svensson	Drums
Country	Sweden	-	Keyboard
Similar artists	Judas Priest, Blitzkrieg, Witchfynde

The 21th century seems to be the century of reunions and now it's time for another one. The Swedish traditional metallers Overdrive is back after a 24 year long hiatus. Overdrive recorded one mini-album and two full-lengths in the early eighties which nowadays has a semi-legendary status in the underground scene. The band disbanded shortly after the release of their 1984 offering entitled Swords & Axes but reformed in 2003 with a new vocalist in the shape of Per "PerilOz" Karlsson. Since then they have played a gig at Sweden Rock Festival and re-recorded a couple of old tracks for a MCD that was released in 2006.

Overdrive has most definitely taken care of their legacy and they still deliver traditional metal that makes you think of obscure NWOBHM-bands as well as dinosaurs like Judas Priest or Accept. Some of the songs were actually written in the eighties and has only been updated a bit for this recording. Since Janne Stark (Locomotive Breath, Mountain Of Power etc.) is known for his great guitar work it comes as no surprise that Let The Metal Do The Talking is all about guitars. Per Karlsson however is in my opinion a quite mediocre vocalist. It might be because of poor song writing but the vocal melodies are totally uninteresting and the outcome sounds stressed and in fact quite annoying.

Since I like traditional heavy metal I had some expectations on this disc but the lack of interesting melodies is far too evident and I am sad to say that I got bored when listening. The only highlight of Let The Metal Do The Talking is the guitar work but I would only recommend the album to die hard NWOBHM-fans with a soft spot for riffs.