It has been over two decades since Megaforce Records unleashed Overkill upon the thrash world. Over the years, the New Jersey outfit has released 14 studio albums, a couple of live recordings, and an album of cover songs.

Their latest release, Immortalis, reunites them with Johnny and Marsha Zazula who were the masterminds behind Megaforce and helped launch their career. This time it is on a new label, Bodog Music. The new album seems to present a reinvigorated band, delivering an old school thrash sound that has its eye set on the future and is bolstered by strong production values.

I never really got into Overkill. There was something about Bobby Blitz's voice that just got under my skin. The music was always all right, but I had a hard time listening to his voice for very long.  Prior to Immortalis I only had one Overkill album in my collection, 1994's W.F.O. That album has a couple of good tracks on it, led by "The Wait/New High in Lows."

I guess it didn't help that I was late getting into music, and my journey took me through the "hair metal" era and then went straight into the grunge scene of the early 1990s. Metal was always there, but it was more on the periphery. This caused me to miss a lot of good music. Fortunately, there is always time to double back and pick up the old stuff, or "discover" bands with newer releases as they try to remain relevant.

Overkill has succeeded in keeping thrash alive with this new release; hopefully fans will find it and the curious will give it a shot. It may not be my favorite, but there is a lot to like about it.

I received Immortalis mere hours before going to see the band perform live, so I did not have all that long to get acquainted with the new material. I will say one song jumped out at me on the first listen, "Skull and Bones." It was one of the two cuts off this release that made it to the live set (along with that my previously mentioned track from W.F.O.). The live show was spectacular, perfectly capturing the energy displayed on Immortalis.

This is a band that doesn't care about trends, has let their sound evolve naturally, and delivers a show that gets the pit going. There are no rock star pretensions at work. Bobby goes out there, does his thing, leads the band through a roaring set of thrash, puts his love for the audience on display, and goes full bore. The same is true for the energy trapped in a digital sew that appears on this album.