Thrash steel stalwarts Overkill are losing no time transferring ahead after a significant lineup change. Simply over a yr since releasing Scorched, the New Jersey veterans are already writing and demoing materials for its follow-up.
Earlier this week, the band gave followers a glimpse into the method once they shared a put up from Jeramie Kling, their just lately recruited drummer, who revealed he is been utilizing a Roland digital package throughout the writing periods. For Kling, it is a new strategy to experiment with Overkill‘s fast-paced, riff-driven thrash sound: “Loving my new Roland package,” he wrote, noting that it has been invaluable throughout “writing” and “demoing” periods.
Kling formally turned Overkill‘s drummer in August 2024, changing Jason Bittner, who had held the place since 2017. Whereas greatest referred to as a founding member of The Absence and for his work with Venom Inc. (showing on their 2022 document There’s Solely Black), Kling‘s résumé is huge. His profession consists of stints with FORE, Ribspreader, Goregäng, Necromancing the Stone, and a quick tenure in Bloodbath, which in the end led to the formation of Inhuman Situation alongside Terry Butler (Obituary, ex-Dying) and Taylor Nordberg (Deicide).
Past his drumming chops, Kling can also be an completed recording engineer, producer, and dwell sound engineer — ability units that might simply bleed into Overkill‘s subsequent period each within the studio and on stage. Kling‘s dwell debut with Overkill got here on August 30, 2024, on the Posada Rock competition in Câmpulung Muscel, Romania.
Kling steps into a job vacated by Jason Bittner, who recorded on The Wings of Warfare in 2019 and Scorched in 2023. Bittner‘s departure was not a shock to these contained in the band. In November 2023, he revealed on the Pod Scum podcast that he hadn’t been proud of Overkill “for, like, two fucking years.”
“I might been dissatisfied for a very long time, however I am a group participant. I do not like to depart issues. I really like the blokes personally. So I simply sort of simply hung in there, however I used to be not blissful the place I used to be career-wise inside the confines of that band. I wasn’t a bandmember. And that is the principle factor for me to maintain doing this at this level in my lifetime.”
Bittner went on to elucidate that he felt underpaid and in the end left for monetary {and professional} causes, including that he might make more cash taking part in 5 exhibits with Shadows Fall than thirty with Overkill. Regardless of that, he emphasised there was “no animosity,” calling it “only a enterprise factor.”
In September 2024, bassist D.D. Verni echoed these sentiments in an interview with Capital Chaos TV: “We sort of knew that that was coming. He had instructed us some time in the past that he was simply sort of burned out on too many issues and had his arms in too many pots. So I believe we sort of knew that was coming.”
Overkill‘s choice to push rapidly into new music with Kling displays the band’s relentless work ethic. With practically 20 studio albums below their belt and over 4 many years within the recreation, the band continues to evolve whereas sustaining the thrash ferocity that outlined their Eighties classics.
Kling‘s presence might sign contemporary power and even perhaps some technical experimentation within the drum division. And given his expertise behind the console, he may additionally affect the manufacturing strategy to the following document.
For now, followers can solely speculate on how Overkill‘s subsequent launch will sound. However one factor is definite: with a revitalized lineup and new materials within the works, the veterans present no indicators of slowing down.
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