I’ll be totally honest here and say I’ve only ever dabbled in Annihilator’s music. I liked Alice In Hell, loved and owned Never Never Land but jumped off the bandwagon when Set The World Afire came out. All the line-up changes and a more commercial direction led me to go aw….whatever. Every so often I’d see in magazines that “they” were releasing a new album, King Of The Hill, Refresh The Demon. Jeff Waters singing on this one, not on that one. I heard their Metal release a couple of years ago and they were treading water big time.
What can’t be denied is Jeff Waters playing. He’s always been an incredible guitarist and he is the band. I’m a little surprised they are still going as the U.S market especially promoters have ignored the band for many years. I took a chance on this after our recent Jeff Waters conversation we had with Joel McIver that’s airing soon. We all marvelled at how good a player he is, both Metallica and Megadeth had asked him to join at one point. Joel had him in the top 5 in his book The Top 100 Heavy Metal Guitarists Of All Time.
Put it on and fuck me I’m floored at just how good this is. It’s more varied then I expected. Sure there are facemelters like Deadlock, No Way Out and Demon Code. Great old school thrash with great riffs and solos. No Surrender is funky in parts, Perfect Angel Eyes is an acoustic ballad and Wrapped is very punky featuring Danko Jones on vocals. Nine songs and all great. Special mention must also go out to vocalist David Padden who does a great job. Get that old tennis racket out, bang your head and jump around the room. Bet you’ll be doing it without even knowing.
Richie.
