Annihilistic!
It’s battle stations ladies and gents, strap on your armour and head into the warzone with our good friends Annihilator( I met them at an in store at the time of ‘Stonewall’, really nice guys) because it’s time to go ‘Ballistic, Sadistic’ and fear no one, fear nothing. This is their 17th album and it is ‘Armed To The Teeth’ folks in an all-out Thrashfest. A self -help video accompanies the first song as the bullies are taught a lesson in violence. We have ‘The Attitude’ with its endearing chant of ‘fuck your attitude’ on which the reverb is gonna be unstoppable and as for the riffery at 2.37, well either get in the pit or get in the bin.
Jeff Waters – we are not worthy- is the mastermind with the masterplan and as Metallica say ‘obey your master’ the choice is yours dear friends. Enter the ‘Psycho Ward’ and witness the abusers – domestic or otherwise- get their comeuppance. It has been called out enough times, but this corrosive and destructive behaviour needs to stop, and the ‘just take him away’ Lord I need to sit down. The riff/time changes first at 2.21 then 2.42 and then at 3.05 are sublime, how they complement each other and produce such effective and astounding fretwork. This is my favourite track on the album.
‘Humans warring since birth’ is the painful reminder, obviously history has taught us nothing, our leaders have fooled us into living incendiary lives, that war is the answer, it’s a tragedy that the incompetent are in power. An all too familiar tale with ‘Out With The Garbage’ when we attempt to escape the chains and hope our abusers are ‘gone from my mind, not too long I will find, someone who values my worth’. A nod and a wink to one of my favourite films is in ‘Dressed Up For Evil’ with capitalism and Satanism aligned the savagery is real and terrifying as we are told ‘He’s the one, Hell has come’. There is a long intro for ‘Riot’ and then in jumps Jeff at 1.13 with his slice and dice vocals, it’s all good metalheads! The current buzzword is ‘accountability’ where we all want to skewer those that have wronged us and here in ‘One Wrong Move’ we sing ‘here comes the consequence’ and at 2.04 we have some quiet time to gather our thoughts before determining the fate of our nemesis. A good old lip- smacking Thrash groove in ‘Lip Service’ gives us those timely tempo changes at 2.15 and 2.34, really love these arrangements folks. The closer is ‘The End Of The Lie’ and I only wish it was though and the plea to ‘see the light and make it right’ will no doubt resonate with many of us along with ‘paranoia, anxiety, anger and fear’ being our character defining attributes.
In the silence I ponder what riffery is this? Annihilator are coming atcha my friends, there is nowhere to hide.
Annihilator – Ballistic, Sadistic out now via Silver Lining Music