"Overkill" is already the second full length album of PAINBASTARD, a German one man project consisting of Alex P. I see the cover with a black angel (the angel of death...?) in front of rotten industrial areas and it is all colored in black and gray. The used fonts of the track list are old Germany-like based on WWII ideas and I’m sure that Alex has seen and heard very often the stuff of :WUMPSCUT: for example. Almost the same goes out to the music. I am sure that Alex has taken in his career a deep look into all efficient ingredients acts like the already mentioned :W:, plus HOCICO and/or SUICIDE COMMANDO have already produced before and so nothing is really new here. PAINBASTARD play hard along the allowed cliches this music genre has to offer, nevertheless this new album has blown me totally away. It is really hard to look for an almost comparable album which hit me that hard like this "Overkill" has done. It must belong on the pure and naked aggression this project has to offer on almost all tracks of this release. I am impressed by the overall "slab-in your-face" attitude caused through the very aggressive vocals and the straight hitting beats. This is hard and ripping EBM par excellence played with known weapons, but still unique arranged. PAINBASTARD fills also in some guitar sounds ("System Failed" or "Final Day") to support the bass lines and the melodic content is tasteful arranged. So finally I am still searching for the track or the band in where I have already discovered the music from PAINBASTARD without success. Excellent mastering work again was done by Krischan of the talented ROTERSAND, who was also responsible for this on the last [:SITD:] release. Congrats to the label to this release, congrats to the band for giving a fine produced hard Electro/EBM album which can stand all comparisons.