By Jim Rowland
Albums from classic Canadian thrash bands are coming along like London buses right now. Last week I reported on the rather fine new album from Voivod, and this week it’s the (sort of) new one from the mighty Annihilator. Kicking off an extensive reissue campaign of many of the albums from Annihilator’s illustrious back catalogue is ‘Metal II’, although this isn’t a straight-ahead reissue of the band’s 2007 ‘Metal’ album. Instead, it’s a pretty radical re-working of the original album, retaining the original’s guest appearances, but re-recording a lot of the music with new vocalist Stu Block, and a certain Dave Lombardo on drums…
The roll call of guest guitarists on the original album, whose work is retained here, is impressive and includes the likes of Danko Jones, Nevermore’s Jeff Loomis, Lamb Of God’s Willie Adler, Trivium’s Corey Beaulieu and Anvil’s Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow to name but a few. One other guest guitarist that featured is Children Of Bodom’s Alexi Laiho, one of two departed and sadly missed guitarists the album serves as a tribute to. The other one is the legendary Eddie Van Halen, with a cover of ‘Romeo Delight’ included here, which didn’t feature on the original ‘Metal’ album. ‘Romeo Delight’ was of course one of Van Halen’s heaviest tracks, and here it’s given an even more metallic boost. The other great cover on the album is Exciter’s cult classic ‘Heavy Metal Maniac’, originally a Japanese bonus track, and an HM belter with some great riffs that the Annihilator treatment does justice to.
Elsewhere, ‘Army Of One’, ‘Smothered’ and ‘Kicked’ are big, punchy heavy metal bruisers, ‘Downright Dominate’ is a quality technical thrasher, and ‘Haunted’ is a 8+ minute Slayer-esque epic. ‘Chasing The High’ and ‘Clown Parade’ are particularly fast, furious and brutal thrash metal, whilst the chugging, Sabbath-inspired riffing of ‘Detonation’ and the catchy ‘Couple Suicide’ take a slicker, slightly more commercial approach.
‘Metal II’ does what is says on the tin – quality heavy metal, loud and proud, hard and heavy. Stu Block’s vocals inject power, passion and aggression into the Annihilator sound, and if you’re going to get a drummer in to update these recordings, who better than the man widely regarded as the greatest thrash drummer of all – Dave Lombardo.
There are some real nuggets amongst the previous 17 studio albums Annihilator has released over the years, so with this being the first in a long-term series of releases which promise to unveil special configurations, additional bonus material and exclusive and previously unheard new tunes from the band, there’s exciting times to come for Annihilator fans.
- ‘Metal II’ is out now. You can get your copy HERE.
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