Annihilator - Self Titled (4/5)

01. The Trend 07:04 02. Coward 04:21 03. Ambush 03:21 04. Betrayed 04:34 05. 25 Seconds 04:49 06. Nowhere to Go 05:07 07. The Other Side 04:19 08. Death In Your Eyes 05:58 09. Payback 04:47 10. Romeo Delight 4:25

Expectation is a funny thing. The better you prove to be at something, the harder it seems to please people…in the musical sense, it’s often the case of the bigger the band, the bigger the monkey clinging to their back. Metallica, Slayer, even Iron Maiden - they’ve all battled the monkey at one time or another.

Well, Annihilator have one of the biggest expectation monkeys of all, almost King Kong like in stature, simply by merit of being the brainchild of Jeff Waters. Continually named in the single-figure upper echelons of those “worlds greatest guitarist” rankings that appear in the music magazines pretty much every month, the man turned down a place in Megadeth twice so he could concentrate on Annihilator, who have churned out a string of classics since 1989’s ‘Alice in Hell’.

So, before we even get started here, I’ll make one thing clear. It’s not 1989, OK? It’s 2010, and this isn’t going to be ‘Alice in Hell’. Mmmkay? ’Kay. Take a minute to get over that, and we can proceed. Just ignore the expectation monkey for forty-eight minutes or so, and enjoy listening to a CD. It shouldn’t be difficult, really.

A few concessions to history; ‘Annihilator’ is the band‘s 13th album, and for it Jeff has shed the star-studded army of guest performers present on 2007’s ‘Metal’, instead stripping the crew down to just himself and vocalist Dave Padden, with session drummer Ryan Ahoff filling in behind the kit. Dave has performed Annihilator’s vocals since 2002’s “All For You”, about as close as you can come to a permanent band member outside of Jeff (he‘s the eighth to lend his voice to the band, indeed), and sounds really at home in the job.

The tone for the album is emphatically set with “The Trend”, a thunderous statement of intent led by a blistering lead line - if you were in any doubt about this being a Jeff Waters album, “The Trend” quickly dispels it. And indeed, should you be a newcomer to Annihilator, presumably because you’ve been dwelling in some kind of cave most of your life, it instantly provides an accurate introduction to the band. Suffice to say, what Jeff Waters considers a suitable lead line to open an album with, most bands would be happy to consider the greatest guitar solo of their album, if not career.

“The Trend” (which is about exactly what you think it is, complete with lyrical references to Hot Topic) is followed up by “Coward” and “Ambush”, two solid slices of fairly simple, fast, angry thrash - Jeff himself describes “Coward” as a “headbanging, no B.S. metal scorcher”, and he’s not wrong. Dave Padden’s lyrics are voicing something pretty personal, anyway, as he opens each verse by barking “listen up, you bastard!” - frankly, you actually hope it’s aimed at someone who’s wronged him in some way, rather than you the listener…as I noted earlier, Padden sounds really at home singing for Annihilator, and it’s clear why Jeff has kept him on while the band has gone through what I’d roughly estimate to be twenty-six other members. He gives a polished, confident performance throughout, ranging from the classical thrash technique of just shouting to more melodic sections of actual singing. Nowhere is this more apparent than on “Nowhere to Go”, where he segues perfectly from barking through the verses to providing a soaring melody in the choruses.

“25 Seconds” is led by an almost creepy bass refrain, and is a more riff-driven effort focusing more on the thrash edge of the music than Jeff’s solo assault. The only real concession to his shred-based instincts lie in a short and chaotic solo at the song’s heart, and this is frankly a welcome change of scenery, if not pace, from the rest of the album. “Death in Your Eyes” is a decent mid-tempo melodic number, again showcasing a slightly different side to Annihilator’s sound while still somehow - of course - containing copious quantities of shred; it even features one of the album’s best solos.

The album somewhat disappointingly closes with a cover of Van Halen’s “Romeo Delight”, which isn’t really anything special; it actually sounds remarkably cheesy and outdated compared to the nine original songs preceding it. Hence, it’s tempting to consider “Payback” the real album closer, and it’s frankly a lot more suited to that task than the cover. It’s not the best song on the album, by any means, but it’s a good traditional Jeff Waters number, all thunderous riffs and frankly boner-inducing soloage.

Which is a fitting epitaph for the album, perhaps. If you’re going to insist on bringing the past into this, alright, I’ll admit it - ‘Annihilator’ isn’t as good as ‘Alice in Hell’. It’s not the band’s best album ever, but dammit, that doesn’t stop it being a good album. Annihilator on ’Annihilator’ have turned out some solid thrash numbers and a meaty collection of awesome guitar solos, and that’s good enough for me. Let’s not condemn them for being too good in the past; even if this album is merely good by the high standards we ascribe to the likes of Jeff Waters, it’s a very good one among the class of today.

Annihilator is available to buy at Play.com

Genre : Thrash

Article by Phil Sim