In which our titular hero, Overkill‘s stalwart bassist D.D. Verni, puts the four string away for a little while (just a little while, mind – he plays all the low end on this album) and indulges his songwriting bent over eleven tracks of punk-informed metal…

Dreadful Company is a strange beast, a neither fish nor metallic fowl melange where Verni’s clear sincerity shines through even when the music itself falls flat. It’s well played, well sung and well produced, but you can’t help feeling that, in Verni’s rush to get away from ‘the day job’, he manages to throw a fair number of babies out with the bath water.

On the positive side, opener Lunkhead will put a smile on the listener’s face from the get-go; it’s a boneheaded, brawling Jersey anthem (replete with a guitar solo from Anthrax alumnus Charlie Benante!) with a gonzoid chorus absolutely made for crowd interaction, and the album is bookended by another jewel with closer Victoria signing things off in good style.

Elsewhere the Ramones‘ spirit burns bright on Cemetary Safari, whilst the cover of Bachman Turner Overdrive‘s Takin’ Care Of Business reminds the listener of Verni’s blue-collar roots, but the album gets bogged down a bit too often through it’s middle in what I like to term ‘major label’ punk styles, culminating in the bloated Call of the Highway, a six minute mini opera which wants to fuse together the likes of Billie Joe Armstrong and Bruce Springsteen without really getting to the nub of the American gothic vibe that the writer is striving for.

When you think that Verni had a hand in writing the best thrash/punk anthem of the last ten years – Overkill’s Welcome To The Garden State – you find yourself yearning for a bit of that track’s piss n’vinegar to be applied to this record. But I guess that’s not the real point of Dreadful Company, which sees itself as more of a songwriterly exercise. If you’re willing to indulge Verni that, then you’ll enjoy this album. If not, then it’s back to Hello For From The Gutter I guess…



Dreadful Company is out now.