by Sebastian Kluth
Par kluseba
Band founder and leader Jeff Waters certainly hasn't always made the best decisions for his band Annihilator. This includes an incredible number of line-up changes such as having four different singers on the first four studio albums. That tendency continues with a quickly revolving set of live musicians who don't always have perfect chemistry with the ambitious, gifted and talented band leader. The fact that Jeff Waters has moved from Ottawa to Vancouver and then back to Ottawa to finally immigrate to the United Kingdom certainly didn't make things any easier. The quality of the releases also had some shifts and changes, especially in the chaotic late nineties and the rather underwhelming early years of the millennium. His worst decision thus far might however have been to record the album Metal again. The final result here is blandly entitled Metal II and features eleven songs for a total running time of fifty-nine minutes.
The original album was already problematic back in the days. Instead of recording said record with a stable line-up including underrated guitarist and singer Dave Padden, that record was overloaded with guest musicians and singers that made the final record sound like an unbalanced compilation of cacophonically improvised jam sessions. Now, that record has been re-recorded with yet another set of musicians, namely drumming legend Dave Lombardo and Canadian singer Stu Block. The latter's overtly dramatic vocals and the former's dominant drum play make the final result even tougher to digest. Plus, it's a slap in the face for Dave Padden who provided some stability to the band line-up which lead to some of the group's best albums. In addition to the line-up issues, the songwriting here is bland and boring as there isn't one single remotely memorable track to be found.
The purpose of this release is as problematic as its quality. Apparently, this album foreshadows a series of releases helmed by infamous earMUSIC. That German label has tried the same thing with numerous other artists and has failed multiple times when fans were getting excited and ended up being immensely disappointed. Gamma Ray's rereleases only made it to the fourth studio album and included numerous vapid live records instead of promoting the band's greatest efforts from the late nineties and early years of the new millennium. An even worse case is what has been done to power metal legends Stratovarius, as their series of rereleases randomly started with the eighth studio record and a live album from the same era and was never continued. It's quite obvious that those rereleases didn't sell as much as they were supposed to be. If the label couldn't promote the rereleases of popular metal bands such as Gamma Ray and Stratovarius properly, then the attempt to do so with Canadian underdog Annihilator is probably destined to fail. To start things with an unpopular rerecording of an unstable record from the middle years certainly is a dreadful start confirming the worst expectations right from the start.
The only reason why this horrible output deserves five percent is because of Jeff Waters' skillful technical guitar play. Everything else from unimpressive songwriting over a dreadful rerelease strategy to an overload of underperforming guest musicians and vocalists is absolutely disappointing. Jeff Waters' streak of weird decisions continues even after almost four decades in the business as he has now reached age fifty-six. One has to wonder whether he will ever learn from his mistakes. My best advice would be to settle someplace stable, get a reliable line-up that should participate in songwriting duties and to focus on the future instead of digging in the past like a desperate tomb raider.
Final Rating: 5%
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