ROCKET REVIEW: ANNIHILATOR – “Feast” (CD)

Canadian metal band ANNIHILATOR unleashes their fourteenth studio album “Feast” in 2013. Led by Jeff Waters on guitar and Dave Padden on lead vocals they immediately scorch your ears off with the crushing “Deadlock” and “No Way Out”, which features some fantastic guitar shredding no doubt. Great riffs are what you will be in store for and some impressive song structures with one payoff chorus after the next. The rhythm section is laid down with devastating conviction by Mike Harshaw on drums and Alberto Campuzano on bass. The band turns it up a notch with track three’s “Smear Campaign” that is some of the fastest metal you will hear all year.

“No Surrender” has this quirky Faith No More/Red Hot Chili Peppers vibe going on for it, taking you away from the pure thrash assault the record started with, but that’s not to say it’s bad. It still has a defiant, “Fuck you we kick ass anyway” attitude to it that only a great band like ANNIHILATOR can provide. The next track “Wrapped” has a more punk/industrial feel to it and perhaps gets a little too close to STATIC-X for my liking, but again, that’s not to say the song is entirely bad. The guitar work is at such a high level that for me at this point it wouldn’t matter if they were playing reggae.

I would have given the album a perfect score at this point but the horrendous ballad “Perfect Angel Eyes” totally kept that from happening. I don’t know what Waters was thinking by including this clunker. Rebounding from its misstep, the album finishes out in solid manner with the slamming “Demon Code”, hard charging “Fight The World”, and the melodic but powerful “One Falls, Two Rise”. I just wish this band would take themselves a bit more seriously on the next album and not ever include such a laughable ballad like “Perfect Angel Eyes”. That is one of the worst songs I can remember hearing in a very long time. If they can put together an even faster and more technical album next time with even finer attention to lyrics there’s no telling what kind of metal masterpiece is right around the corner for this band.

ROCKET REVIEW:
[starreview tpl=16]
ANNIHILATOR – “Feast” (CD)
(EMI/UDR, 2013)

1. Deadlock
2. No Way Out
3. Smear Campaign
4. No Surrender
5. Wrapped
6. Perfect Angel Eyes
7. Demon Code
8. Fight The World
9. One Falls, Two Rise

http://www.annihilatormetal.com/