Artist: Annihilator
Title: Live at Masters of Rock
Type: Live DVD/CD
Label: Steamhammer/SPV

I was having a chat with a friend some two decades my junior the other day, and saying how excited I was to have the latest Annihilator release to review when they simply said, “who?” Having just about caught my scrumpy before it hit the pub floor, I realized there may well be a whole generation of metal fans who have yet to have the pleasure of discovering their music, so I feel I must start with a history lesson. Let me take you on a journey through time, back over 20 years to 1988 when thrash was still relatively new, and “The Big Four” are dominating the scene. Slayer are touring with ‘South of Heaven’; Anthrax with ‘State of Euphoria’; Megadeth are blasting the metal scene with ‘So Far, So Good, So What?’ and Metallica are preparing their decades long world domination with the release of ‘…And Justice For All’. With America also producing the likes of Testament and Exodus, there could be no doubt of that country’s utter domination of thrash. Suddenly, in 1989, that domination looked like it could be challenged when blasting out from Canada came Annihilator with ‘Alice in Hell’. Combining epic vocals, almost prog rock complexity and musicianship, and powered on by guitar hero in the making Jeff Waters, it looked like there would be a new front runner, as patches, badges, and t-shirts of a rather creepy girl coming down a flight of stairs strewn with discarded dolls started appearing at many gigs and clubs.

Jump forward to the present day, and with a dozen studio albums to their credit from 1990’s classic ‘Never Neverland’ to 2007’s excellent guest strewn ‘Metal’ , only Jeff Waters remains from that original line up, with almost 30 other musicians coming and going in the mean time. Even a look at the band’s myspace page as I am typing this shows they are now auditioning for a new bassist, not much over a year after this live offering was recorded in front of 30,000 fans at 2008’s Czech Masters of Rock festival.

History lesson over, and it’s on to this live DVD & CD package, possibly the last product of the band’s association with Steamhammer/SPV. Unlike many such live releases, the DVD doesn’t contain any of the behind the scenes or documentary extras that normally appear, simply being a live performance. That, however, is not a criticism, as surely that’s what you want in a concert DVD, and in this package you get 13 tracks over 75 minutes. This is largely split between tracks from the last album, like ‘Clown Parade’ and ‘Operation Annihilation’, where singer Dave Padden sounds very much like a young Hetfield, and classics from the first two albums. Whilst clearly far more of a veteran then his three latest band mates, it is the energy of Waters that comes through, as he dominates the stage with the sort of guitar chops that have lead him to influence the new generation of shredders like Evile and Lazarus AD. Even the slightly cheesy trademark glowing flying V doesn’t detract from his obvious ability, and solo after solo are met with awed applause from the audience.

Whilst every track shines with quality, it is the older songs that have the crowd reacting the most strongly; ‘Welcome To Your Death’, ‘Never, Neverland’, and the inevitable ‘Alison Hell’ being met with screams of delight from an audience that, unlike my erstwhile drinking buddy, are well versed in the history of the band, announcements of some “1990 thrash” having heads swirling all over the stadium, with ‘I am in Command’ sounding fresh and played with a neck wrenching power. The set ends with what Jeff Waters says is not any kind of metal, just hard rock, the bluesy ‘Shallow Grave’ from 2001’s ‘Carnival Diablos’. Whilst potentially out of sync with the rest of the set, it is in fact a perfect number for the crowd to bounce and cheer along to after a thrash metal bludgeoning.

Who knows what the next incarnation of Annihilator will look like, nor what the much promised and much anticipated 2010 studio album will be like, but on the basis of this exuberant live performance, the Annihilator brand looks set to play sold out shows for a good while yet.

http://www.annihilatormetal.com
http://www.myspace.com/annihilatorofficial

Spenny Bullen

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