Post by Bartwald on Mar 28, 2004 13:06:11 GMT -5
ANNIHILATOR [shadow=red,left,300]Never Neverland[/shadow] (CD) ****1/2
This second Annihilator album is most probably their best one. 'Alice In Hell', although much better than many metal debuts, is a bit too raw and monotonous to compete with 'Never, Neverland', while the later albums never seemed as equally edgy and in-your-face as this one.
It all begins with a riff which won't cease to haunt this band until the present days (its echoes appear on almost EVERY Annihilator album!); it's called 'The Fun Palace', of course, and it's the epitome of thrash - sharp rhythmically, with wonderfully balanced high and low vocals, a brilliant guitar solo, THIS guitar riff and appropriately dark lyrics. Another track, 'Road To Ruin', is also a great pleasure to listen to, plus, a guitar solo cuts it into halves telling a completely different story. In 'Sixes and Sevens' a beautey of an intro transforms into a classic Annihilator machine-gun rhythm and goes on like that until the end; not much melody here but it's still wonderful. 'Stonewall', on the other hand, is the most catchy and melodic track on the album, but it's also perfectly varied (has some real-fast parts, some just-fast parts, and also a melancholy-section) and kills the listener with its chorus. 'Never, Neverland' mixes fast and slow guitar-work again, and has a thriller background which fits this band really well. The rest of the tracks are not THAT wonderful but still very cool. Sometimes the vocals seem too death-metal (like those in 'Phantasmagoria'), sometimes the music is a bit too racy (like in 'Reduced To Ash), but the overall effect just cannot be spoilt as there aren't any 'bad' or 'average' tracks here.
As bonuses on this edition we get an instrumental version of 'Kraf Dinner' (for me it's better than the version with lyrics as I somehow never grasped this song's comedy), and two Deicide tracks - 'Mayhem' and 'Freed From The Pit'... or... wait, of course not! These are just demo versions of 'Reduced to Ash' and 'Road To Ruin' where Mr. Waters tries to impersonate Glenn Benton! ...We should probably be grateful that he changed his vocal ways when he grasped the mike again while recording the 'King Of The Kill' album.
This second Annihilator album is most probably their best one. 'Alice In Hell', although much better than many metal debuts, is a bit too raw and monotonous to compete with 'Never, Neverland', while the later albums never seemed as equally edgy and in-your-face as this one.
It all begins with a riff which won't cease to haunt this band until the present days (its echoes appear on almost EVERY Annihilator album!); it's called 'The Fun Palace', of course, and it's the epitome of thrash - sharp rhythmically, with wonderfully balanced high and low vocals, a brilliant guitar solo, THIS guitar riff and appropriately dark lyrics. Another track, 'Road To Ruin', is also a great pleasure to listen to, plus, a guitar solo cuts it into halves telling a completely different story. In 'Sixes and Sevens' a beautey of an intro transforms into a classic Annihilator machine-gun rhythm and goes on like that until the end; not much melody here but it's still wonderful. 'Stonewall', on the other hand, is the most catchy and melodic track on the album, but it's also perfectly varied (has some real-fast parts, some just-fast parts, and also a melancholy-section) and kills the listener with its chorus. 'Never, Neverland' mixes fast and slow guitar-work again, and has a thriller background which fits this band really well. The rest of the tracks are not THAT wonderful but still very cool. Sometimes the vocals seem too death-metal (like those in 'Phantasmagoria'), sometimes the music is a bit too racy (like in 'Reduced To Ash), but the overall effect just cannot be spoilt as there aren't any 'bad' or 'average' tracks here.
As bonuses on this edition we get an instrumental version of 'Kraf Dinner' (for me it's better than the version with lyrics as I somehow never grasped this song's comedy), and two Deicide tracks - 'Mayhem' and 'Freed From The Pit'... or... wait, of course not! These are just demo versions of 'Reduced to Ash' and 'Road To Ruin' where Mr. Waters tries to impersonate Glenn Benton! ...We should probably be grateful that he changed his vocal ways when he grasped the mike again while recording the 'King Of The Kill' album.