ANNIHILATOR: King Of The Kill (THRASH): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

With "Set The World On Fire", Annihilator wanted to put the metal planet at his feet. Unfortunately for the Canadians, the success was far from being at the rendezvous and this album, while nice, was a bitter failure. Annihilator is not Metallica and the melodic tendencies of the band were very badly perceived by the fans. In fact, the band explodes, Roadrunner frees it from its contract and releases a compilation that looks like an epitaph. But it takes more to discourage Jeff Waters who goes against it very quickly with a 4th album, "King Of The Kill", just over a year later.

For this album, Waters cleans up around him: he takes care of the guitar, the bass but also the vocals, and only keeps with him a new drummer, Randy Black, for what now looks more like a solo project than a band. He also writes all the music and has found refuge with Music For Nations, a modest label but passionate about the metal cause. With this aggressive album title, this equally threatening cover and the speech of a Waters ready to fight, we start dreaming of an album back to the roots, powerful with that melodic touch that made the band's sound.

Unfortunately, the wager of this return is only partially successful. Waters wrote a lot of tracks in a very short time and there's some rubbish, and if he finds again the sense of the riff, there are also tracks that are much more average and that would have deserved either an external look or more finishing touches. In fact, the album suffers from a rather clear imbalance, good thrash tracks rubbing shoulders with quite passable mid tempos and average tracks that are quickly forgotten. However, with "King Of The Kill", "Second To None", "Fiasco" or even "21", he offers very good thrash tracks, sounding close to a Megadeth, with the same talent to conciliate power and melody. Jeff Waters does well on vocals: he certainly doesn't have the same power as the greats of the genre, but he knows how to give the songs the necessary grain of agressiveness, and instrumentally, the man does it with talent. He throws us sharp riffs and solos of which he has the secret, fluid, fast and melodic, confirming his talents as a guitarist. Talent that he affirms on the instrumental "Catch The Wind", very melodic and slightly Hispanic, on which we think a little bit of Santana. Admittedly, the title is a bit irrelevant in a thrash record, but it is clearly a refreshing recreation.

On the other hand, with "In The Blood" or "Bad Child", it offers us very banal mid-tempi, without any particular catchphrase and sinking even a bit into a rather embarrassing commercial side. Finally, some tracks like "Hell Is A War" or "Speed" are just average and clearly seem to lack of finishing, sounding like vulgar B-sides. It's the same for "The Box" which has the bad idea to open the record, long and heavy, and lacking this melodic facet which makes the strength of Annihilator.

"King Of The Kill" is an honest record with real qualities. Nevertheless, its flaws prevent Annihilator from being able to claim to return to the top of the thrash scene. In fact, the impression that the band is starting to cross the desert is quite tenacious. Jeff Waters' uncompromising character is respectable and commendable, but it can also be disabling. - Official website

ANNIHILATOR

KING OF THE KILL

MUSIC FOR NATIONS

THRASH