Release Date September 18th, 2026
Format CD/Digital/Vinyl
Genre Thrash Metal
Origin Italy
Game Over was born in Ferrara in 2008 and has been hammering away ever since as one of the most restless thrash metal bands in Italy. They were raised on Exodus, Testament and early Metallica, with a crossover streak taken from Cro-Mags and Suicidal Tendencies. The line up is Danny Schiavina on vocals, Luca 'Zeero' Zironi on guitar, Leonardo 'Leo' Molinari on bass and Anthony 'Vender' Dantone on drums. Twelve months after "Face The End", the band is back with its seventh studio album, and a European tour with Defiance and Bonded is booked for November and December.
Simone Mularoni produced, mixed and mastered "When Darkness Falls" at Domination Studio. His desk is more used to the pomp of Wind Rose and Twilight Force, and the surprise is how raw the guitars come out. Zironi's riffs are serrated and upfront, Molinari's bass growls under the verses of "Beneath
The Ground", and Dantone's snare cracks on every double time run of "Break Away". The kick drum is squashed a notch too far on the fastest tracks and turns into a typewriter click when the tempo goes wild.
Mario López, known for his covers for Skeletal Remains, Toxik and Vulture, painted the artwork. The lyrics dig into the monsters hiding inside everyday life through 80s horror movie imagery and a sarcastic grin, with "Curse Of Strahd" dragging vampire gothic out of a Ravenloft campaign and into the circle pit. The album runs a little past half an hour and comes on CD, digital and a limited vinyl edition.
The songwriting sticks to three minute bursts with hardcore in their veins. "Two Souls One Flesh" charges out on a gallop lifted from mid 80s Exodus, with a chorus made for a sweaty club. "Scream It Out" rides a gang shout and a skank beat straight off a Suicidal Tendencies setlist, and "Fight For Your Mind" drops into a stomping Cro-Mags breakdown before Zironi fires off a whammy crazed solo. Schiavina shouts everything in one gear, a hoarse street yell that thrills for three minutes and turns monotonous by "Self Denied".
That's where the middle of the album starts to blur, chorus into chorus. "Command To Die" closes over five minutes, stretching into a mid tempo crunch and twin guitar harmonies that paint the band in a darker shade and hand the album an epic ending. Game Over hides nothing here, only thrash metal played fast, mean and with a smirk, and seven albums in they sound more rabid than bands half their age.
|8.3
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