Artist: Overloaded
   Title: Regeneration
   Label: Independent Release

Detroit’s own Overloaded have followed their superb 'Hail The Kingdom' opus with another dose of full on no nonsense rock n' roll entitled ‘Regeneration’.  This quintet deliver full on heavy metal as it was meant to be, with outstanding riff spewn rock and a vocalist with all the power and passion of an express train.

I just loved 'Hail The Kingdom’ and 'Regeneration is more of the same with Chris Gillen’s once again sounding superb and the guitars of Erik Kluiber as dirty as you can get, the Motor City is once again alive and kicking with the sound of Metal.

The album gets underway with ‘What’s In There’ and it's pure kick ass rock n' roll from the off with no intros in, just straight down to it with the rampaging guitars of Kluiber leading the way for the rampaging rhythm section of John Sullens on guitar, Michael Massie on bass and completing the line-up the power driven drums of Lorenzo Gonzalez, then it’s the unmistakable vocals of Gillen who's voice rips through the track like some crazed rock n' roll banshee.

The same full on sound continues with ‘Obvious Envious’ on which the bass and drums dominates the track along with the vocals of Gillen, this time the guitars take a bit of a back seat until we reach the solo’s where they are unleashed like a pack of wild animals to make their mark on the track.

One track off the bands 'Hail The Kingdom' opus that really made its mark on me was ‘Feeling Overloaded’ and the band have redone the track for this album.  Somehow they've managed to make it sound even better than before with a bigger guitar sound.  I liked the original version but I just love this new beefed up version.

Once again the bass features heavily in the bands sound with the early Sabbath tones of ‘Presidents Day’ and with Kluiber’s old school guitar solo’s mid way through the track this is another slice of pure metal heaven.  This leads the way into the up tempo rocker ‘Ride That Feeling’, which takes me back to the early Skid Row material, fast and furious with a vocalist who can wail like Bach the band show they can really rip it up as well as belt it out on this one.

The closest the band get to a love song on the album is ‘Why Don’t You Love Me Anymore’, although this isn’t quite a ballad, it's more like getting your heart kicked in by love than being caressed by it, with Kluiber and Sullens making this their track with some great guitar moments.

The dirty rock is continued with the up tempo rocker ‘Don’t Leave This Way’ with Kluiber once again shredding like there’s no tomorrow, then things really pick up with the infectious ‘Flashy Girl’, before the album comes to an a close with ‘Try This On For Size’.  Another guitar fuelled assault on the senses and rounds off a great Hard Rock album.  It's just a mystery to me why this band haven’t been picked up by a label yet, but after this album I’m sure they will get their just rewards.

All content copyright of The Mayfair Mall Zine unless otherwise stated.