Game Over - Blessed are the Heretics

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I was expecting a full-fledged album but was happy to get a bit of variety on this EP. At first I thought this was the Slovenia based Thrash Metal band that I heard back in the day but boy was I mistaken, this is the Italy based band. This is an EP, it has one only one new song but it's pretty wicked. It has an alternate version of ''No More'' (that was previously on the album ''Burst into the Quiet'') but this time it’s in Italian. We have one cover, a strange one from a one hit wonder of the 1980's by the band DEAD OR ALIVE. I think this will be the last time you ever see that name again in one of my reviews! We have a few live tracks as well rounding out this EP.

I don't know much about the band to be honest, as for the name of the band, it might be from the classic NUCLEAR ASSAULT album, I am not entirely sure. Especially the fact that NUCLEAR ASSAULT are legends in the genre, so I wouldn't be surprised to know it's from there. Nonetheless, GAME OVER bring it to the table and don't pull any punches. It's not easy to appreciate an album when you have an inner ear infection but I did my best to review it truly and efficiently. The second it started I felt transported to when I discovered the genre in 1993 with ANTHRAX. It's intense, and it has some really fast riffs and it's unrelenting. The vocalist isn't the greatest but in the genre, it's something you can pass on and concentrate on the rest of the music. Italians do have some trouble pronouncing English words and sometimes it can get on the nerves but the music makes for it big time. I would compare these guys to American bands like HAVOK and MUNICIPAL WASTE. Bands that honor the tradition of Thrash Metal but adds something of their own. I guess you can say that GAME OVER are their Italian counterpart.

The new song is nothing original but it’s a fast shredding song that is full of that intensity we all love from the genre. The cover is ok, it was weird to hear a very fast version of that song, I think the last time I heard a cover of this song was in my college days by a band called DOPE. It was a nice cover but I actually prefer the old cover version personally. The live songs are cool but the sound is a bit wonky. Might be on purpose, I am not entirely sure. The crowd noise is a bit too much and you can barely hear the songs properly. I would have preferred a full live album that was properly produced than just a few live tracks mixed in an EP. It’s an honest effort, but a full-length album or live album would have been really better!

Songwriting: 8
Originality: 7
Memorability: 7
Production: 7