The brainchild of the exceptionally talented guitarist/producer Jeff Waters, Annihilator have survived trends, and the rise, fall and resurgence of thrash and more traditionally minded metal throughout their 25 year recording career. Launching with minor classic Alice In Hell in 1989 and seemingly on the verge of a breakthrough with their third opus, Set The World On Fire, the sea-change in the music scene saw them swept aside, ditched by the highly influential Roadrunner label and overlooked by all but the most dedicated as the Canadian melodic thrash/metal outfit spluttered through a series of mixed releases.
But the buzz around Feast (UDR), Annihilator’s fourteenth album, on the back of a fearsome live reputation and having built up a new, younger audience since forming a settled writing partnership with Dave Padden now established as “the voice” of Annihilator, has seen Feast dubbed as their return to form, and their finest moment since the aforementioned Set The World On Fire.
If that is the case, I’m glad I’ve avoided the majority of their output over the last 20 years. When the best thing about your new album is the bonus disk (a re-recorded “best of” covering the pre-Padden years that serves best as a track-list to help you put together your own compilation of the originals) you know you’re in trouble.
What the bonus disk shows is that Annihilator can write songs, and it’s songs that are sorely lacking in this one-dimension staccato offering. Waters’ is at his best when melodic leads and phrases cascade and introduce and lift songs, providing hooks, and he opens out his songwriting, something only the last two numbers, ‘Fight The World’ and ‘One Falls, Two Rise’ or the punkier ‘Wrapped’ threaten to do. Opening pair ‘Deadlock’ and ‘No Way Out’ are clunky and derivative, while ‘No Surrender’ clumsy in its attempts to mix funk and metalcore.
Waters’ has never found a strong, distinctive vocalist, and Padden, although settled, is mediocre at best, neither aggressive, dominant nor catchy. Lyrically, Feast is weak, too and along with the indistinct chuggy riffs and the tone of the compressed-to-hell narrow production is reminiscent of Judas Priest‘s disappointing Jugulator but without the strong vocal performance or anything remotely as worthy as a ‘Cathedral Spires’ to save it.
5/10 for Feast
7/10 for the bonus disk (though the originals are better)
Steve Tovey