Joe Comeau (vocals)
Ray Hartmann (drums) Jeff Waters (guitars, vocals) Dave Scott Davis
(guitars) Russell Bergquist (bass)
Annihilator, the seminal Canadian thrash metal band
who have sold over a million records during their twelve year career,
release their tenth studio album, 'Carnival Diablos' on February 5th
2001 on SPV through Koch.
Annihilator were formed by mainman Jeff Waters, a classically
trained guitarist, in Ottawa. After the band set the local underground
scene alight with their demo, entitled 'Phantasmagoria', the group moved
west to Vancouver and secured their first record deal with the Roadrunner
record label. Annihilator's 'Alice In Hell' album, released in 1989,
was a tour de force of intricate thrash with all guitars and bass parts
played by Waters, who also wrote and produced the material. The sizzling
guitar work helped the record become the best selling debut in Roadrunner's
history.
Annihilator's second album, 'Never, Neverland' (1990),
was another excellent effort, displaying rather more lyrical maturity
than the debut, and a new version of 'Phantasmagoria'.
From the start, though, the band suffered from an unstable
line-up. Original vocalist Randy Rampage (ex-DOA) and second guitarist
Anthony Greenham left after 'Alice In Hell', to be replaced by ex-Omen
frontman Coburn Pharr and guitarist Dave Scott Davis on 'Never, Neverland'.
Davis then quit on the eve of the band's special guest slot on Judas
Priest's European tour, but the group managed to produce creditable
performances nevertheless.
Throughout the '90s, a revolving door of singers and
other personnel stemmed the continuity of the band's trajectory into
the upper echelon of the world's classic metal ranks. Now, the thoroughly
reformed bad boy looks back with a sense of bemusement.
"For some reason, it's always been like a solo project.
If I've learned something over these 12 or 13 years, it's that if it's
your band, even if you're a nice guy, people will leave. Because I mean,
I wasn't easy to get along with in the early days. I was like a dictator/drunk,
which is always a really bad combination. But even after I quit drinking
and things were going well, I found that a lot of guys who were really
talented - or the opposite, who aren't that talented at all and are
insecure - they get in and they realize they aren't getting all the
attention and it's really hard to keep them interested in the band.
Because they realize that it's not their thing, they go off and do other
projects, which makes them happier."
But quietly, Waters has built a core engine for Annihilator
that is as professional as it is loyal.
"Russ, the bass player is here in Vancouver, Dave the
guitar player, is in Victoria. Joe is in Rochester, and Ray, our (original)
drummer, lives really close to me too. Technically speaking, David and
Ray, and I have played together for probably seven or eight years, those
two leaving briefly in '93, and Russ, two years."
And boom! Into the fray wades a new singer, ex-Overkill
guitarist Joe Comeau, now doing what he really loves, growling away
as frontman for a band nearly as rich in history as his old outfit.
"Joe's best quality is sounding like whoever you want
him to sound like," says Waters. "That's great for me because I can
get the ideas in my head sounding in the final analysis exactly how
I wanted them. He has the ability to just clone any of the other Annihilator
singers, including myself, plus he has his own style. So I think it's
a cross between most of our records. There are vocals on there that
remind me of our more melodic albums like 'Set The World On Fire', and
then there's material that has the Randy Rampage 'Alice In Hell' style,
and there are quite a few songs that have a little bit of me as well.
Plus one of Joe's favorite bands is Judas Priest and he does a wicked
Halford."
"Joe's other amazing quality is his work with phrasing,"
notes Waters. "Which is what I would call where the words go, where
you put them, because there are a million different places you can stick
them. You get totally different ideas. When I hear a piece of music
that I write, I always go, 'oh, I know where the words go', but years
later I find that my decisions don't always make for variety. Joe, every
time that I give him a piece of music, he puts the words in a completely
different place, and I would initially go, 'no, no, that doesn't sound
good', but it DID sound good. So I found it really good writing with
him. On the next one, I'll probably give him all the songs and say,
take a stab at it and whatever he's having problems with, we'll co-write
together."
'Carnival Diablos' is the band's most wide-ranging,
yet metallically focused album yet. Metallica, AC/DC, Megadeth and Maiden
are obviously still prime influences on the man and his plan.
"Carnival Diablos obviously means 'the devil's carnival'"
says Jeff. "The album is so versatile. It's not a complete thrash album
and it's not a complete melodic metal album. The only consistent thing
on the record is that it's '80s metal-inspired. At the same time, there's
so much variety in the songs. So I said, let's come up with a title
that denotes this crazy mix, so you've got Annihilator's devil's carnival
of songs (laughs)."
And true to that analysis, 'Carnival Diablos' is studded
with massive riffs, wrapped like sheets of barbed wire around killer
metal songs. 'Denied' rips the album open in prime Annihilator style,
Waters coming up with one of those fearless, fathomless, exacting riffs
that we've come to expect from a man who has, not once but twice in
his career, been talked about as potential second guitarist in Mustaine's
Megadeth.
'The Perfect Virus' demonstrates the Waters knack for
textures within slow muscular frameworks, jagged, slashed riffs countered
by brief jazzy bridges, over which Comeau sneers an affected vocal and
lyric that Jeff says is "about the perfect computer virus that destroys
everything. Joe thought of it as being about AIDS or some disease, so
you can also generalize it that way."
Next up is the vicious, delicious 'Battered', Waters
remarking that "true to the name of that one, it's a full-blown 'Master
Of Puppets' Metallica ripper (laughs). No hiding the influence on that
one. I don't have a problem saying that; it's not a rip-off, but hey,
that album was sure a big influence." 'The Rush', "all about the adrenaline
rush and any way you can get it" is a track packed with metal groove,
pounding rhythms and hooks that kill. It is easily one of the band's
most addictive compositions ever, Comeau grabbing at the lyric and delivering
it like a man on a mission. Of the title track, Jeff notes that "that
one is a little bit different. It's got a lot of melody on the voice
and it's got a really heavy Michael Schenker groove to it, which is
kind of weird for Annihilator, because we haven't really done something
like that; a sort of a lighter '80s metal tune."
Elsewhere, 'Time Bomb' anchors a record often strafed
with ripping leads and even faster rhythms. "That's sort of a robotic,
futuristic song about the cliché metal monster that comes in and destroys
the earth, but it's a really slow pounding song. It's the kind of song
that I want to play three times in the set live: beginning, middle and
end (laughs)."
Closing the album is perhaps the album's emphatic lasting
statement, 'Hunter Killer' reminiscent of prime 'Reign In Blood' Slayer.
"'Hunter Killer' is a full-blown thrash speed tune, with some severely
wrist-breaking guitar stuff on there," recalls Waters with a wince.
"I remember being in semi-traction for a few weeks after that. It's
funny, because when I write the material I also record a lot of the
guitar tracks as I'm writing it. So by the time I've written a song
I usually have the bass and rhythm guitar tracks already completed.
And when I'm writing, I usually haven't played guitar in a few months.
I just go down there, 'OK, it's time to write songs' and I remember
that one was so damn fast and I hadn't played in a few months, I remember
having to take a few weeks off because my wrists were so swollen. Which
is bad, because you're supposed to warm up for a few weeks before you
start doing crazy stuff (laughs)."
"This album was written and recorded in exactly the
same manner as every record I've recorded since 1993" notes Waters.
"And that is, I sit down with a drum machine, come up with say, 20 guitar
riffs in an hour, and at the end of that hour, get a coffee, pick out
all the ones that are garbage, throw them out, and then have maybe four
left from that 20 (laughs). And then I put them on a tape. And I do
this for maybe a week and a half or two weeks, and then at the end of
the two weeks, I've got maybe 60 riffs that I think are good. And then
I take some time and listen to them and chuck out another 20 or 30,
and you're left with maybe 30 or 40 riffs. And those basically become
the basis for verses, choruses, solo riffs, intro and outro riffs. And
it's like a jigsaw puzzle. Now you know you've got good riffs and you
just try and sort of fit them together like a jigsaw puzzle. Which is
a really twisted way of doing it. Most people just start at the beginning
and write a song and make it flow. But for some reason I like putting
it together like a jigsaw puzzle. And I think one of the many reasons
that Annihilator is still going and still has a fanbase, albeit not
of the Metallica size, or even Slayer or Megadeth, is because of the
way I do this jigsaw puzzle thing. I just piece all this stuff together
in an unorthodox way. I think that's what gives us our own stab at originality.
It's not complete originality, but I think it's a much more original
way of doing it than most people who write songs within the metal style.
That's probably one of the reasons we're still around." |