The canadian thrash-metal band ¨Annihilator¨ continues to deliver album after album and this is one of their newest effort. This album is called ¨Schizo Deluxe¨, an album that almost pukes awesome guitar work such as riffs and solos. The album has quite many different structures in the songs, some are heavy, some are fast and there are songs which are less good. I saw this album in a store and I bought it right away, this was really good stuff but there was a few things that annoyed me pretty much, and that's why I'm about to review this album.
The band has some new members and this is the cast for this album. We start with the new vocalist Dave Padden, the band member that annoys me the most. He has a powerful voice when he delivers almost death-metal screaming in some of the songs, but when I doesn't sing like that he sounds pretty similar with ¨System Of A Down's¨ singer Serj Tankian, a band and singer that disgusts me (my own personal opinion). And then we move on to the ace-member of this band, Jeff Waters. Excellent guitarist that has kept this band alive from the day the band started, Jeff's style of playing is still heavy, pretty advanced and very enjoying to listen to. If you have heard the material on ¨Carnival Diablos¨ then you can figure out how this album will sound like. Curran Murphy is the second guitarist, very good musician but not as close as Jeff though, he keeps up very good both in rhythm and lead. Russell Bergquist is the bass player that hanging around the band in a few years now, you can finally hear some bass lines and fillers in this album. Mike Mangini is a new drummer, he seems to have some experience under his belt. He plays quite heavy beats, both slow and fast patterns which are quite catchy ( think ¨Metallica¨).
And now we move on to the greatest part of an album, the songs of course, I will do my best to describe the songs so keep reading if you are interested. We start with ¨Maximum Satan¨, the song starts with a thing that switches some radio channels, you hear also a breathing and demonic sound. A voice suddenly says something like this: ¨can't we unleash, unleash¨ (demon speaks) THE BEAST! The heavy riffing enters along with a slow guitar solo. The song is very heavy and catchy and the pace is between slow and medium at the beginning of the song, after two mintues the song turns up in pace and Padden delivers some raw screaming and the song returns to the original pattern. ¨Drive¨ starts first with some wierd and short speaking, the band kicks in rihgt after and bashes you with some brutal riffing and pounding drums plus a high-pitched solo. The song gets very thrashy and that will say, maniac drumming and brutal guitars, the vocals is a good example of how similar Dave sounds compared to Serj. The song is very fast but it is not catchy, the vocals ruins the song if you ask me. ¨Warbird¨ is one of my favorite tracks, the song begins with a jet fighter sound, then the guitars enters along with the drums and deliver a very heavy wall of crushing sound. The song may seem familiar to ¨Pantera's¨ type of music and that is because of its heaviness I suppose and aggressive vocals. ¨Plasma Zombies¨ is one of the less good songs of this album in my opinion. The song enters with some old computer sounds along with a computer voice, some heavy chuga-chuga shredding enters but they ends pretty quick to give space for other riffs. The vocals ruins also this song most of the time except for some growls, the song is not so catchy and not a highlight in my opinion. We continue with ¨Invite It¨, this is the most horrid song on this album, it starts with a telephone ringing and then the fast riffing guitars enters along with up-building drums. The vocals are also horrid here, the vocals feels sloppy and has no seriousness. The song is not catchy because of the vocals, the only thing that is enjoying about this song is the fast and technical riffing and the skilled guitar solos.
¨Like Father, Like Gun¨ delivers heavy riffing right from the start, the drums are pretty heavy and has a good pace, the chorus drags down the song a bit but the whole song in general is a great song though. ¨Pride¨ is also a song that I can't enjoy so much because of the vocals. The song starts with a quite heavy intro based on heavy riffing, pounding drums and eerie solong. The song turns up in speed and gets more thrash-spirit in it. The vocals is so lame in the chorus if you compare them to previous songs, the song is good but the chorus lowers the entertainment level. ¨Too Far Gone¨ becamed one of my all time greatest ¨Annihilator¨ songs. The song starts with building guitars which are very heavy, grinding, fast and catchy, the song gets almost extremely heavy. There is also some kind of high-pitched 'riff-soloing' which sounds great and makes the song interesting, the vocals are very good and the song is easy to endure. ¨Clare¨ begins with calm acoustics and ' light' drumming, the vocals kicks in and the song is finally completed. The song feels a bit odd because it doesn't really sound like the previous tracks. The vocals are the best here because Padden releases some powerful death-metal semi-growling screaming time to time, you just want to bang your head at these times. ¨Somthing Witchy¨ is the final track, the song kicks off with some primal screaming from Padden along with some pounding guitars and drums. The song is quite catchy and is pretty heavy too, this song takes you back to ¨Carnival Diablos¨ because of the light tempo, calm singing and amazing soloing. The song is a pretty good closer to this fine album and it almost feels like a highlight though.
Then we are done with the songs, this was truly a great album when it camed to the instruments, I was not so happy about the vocals though. Dave Padden is best when he uses his death-metal screams and semi-growls, I said that I didn't like ¨System Of A Down¨ and thats because of the vocals but thats not a big thing. This is 'love or hate' - vocals if I say so, I enjoyed the vocals pretty much but I think it would've sound better if he just used one type of vocal style on this album. I will recommend this album to thrashers in first hand, death-metal fans would maybe like this album pretty much because of the vocals, in third hand NU-metal fans would also maybe like this because of the vocals.
PORS
+ The intruments sounds great, the guitars may be a bit loud though
+ The powerful screaming from Dave Padden lifts up the songs and make them strong
+ The song patterns are easy to endure and most times the songs are pretty catchy
+ The whole album is very heavy and solid
CONS
- The only thing that bugged me was the 'lame' vocals from Padden
RECOMMENDED TRACKS
-- Maximum Satan
-- Warbird
-- Too Far Gone
-- Clare
Overall album rating for this heavy album will be: 4/5
... just kidding
