When Bloodletting was released in 2000, Overkill had been a band for more than 20 years, and the album’s opening song was an affirmation of its enduring virility after all that time. “Thunderhead” is half tribal stomp and half warlike bombardment. The key moment is the call-and-response chorus: “Send the word ahead, I'm cast in stone/Feel the thunderhead/I’m coming home!” Overkill really was coming home. No metal band has been as consistent for as long, and even after undergoing yet another change in guitarists with the hire of Dave Linsk, Bloodletting shows that Overkill was still feral and hungry. It had no interest in the canned, clean sounds sometimes associated with its thrash-metal brethren. Everything's dirty and distorted and propulsive. Vocalist Bobby Ellsworth revels in his role as the demonic master of ceremonies. “In the darkened bone yard ain’t no other way,” he howls on one song. “I will be your captain when death comes out to play.” Though it's consumed by dark themes, the album is by no means morose; it's a lusty demonstration of unalloyed metal vitality.