Time to up the ante
- from here , aside from a couple of more bluesy rock/AOR interludes , it's all rock and metal.
#44 Annihilator: Never Neverland
Released 1990Tracks
1. "The Fun Palace" 5:51
2. "Road to Ruin" 3:42
3. "Sixes and Sevens" 5:20
4. "Stonewall" 4:50
5. "Never, Neverland" 5:29
6. "Imperiled Eyes" 5:27
7. "Kraf Dinner" 2:41
8. "Phantasmagoria" 3:59
9. "Reduced to Ash" 3:09
10. "I Am in Command" 3:34
In September 1990 , within a week of each other, two thrash metal classics were released…………Rust In Peace and Never Neverland. To me there are four classics of that genre that just nail the combination of heaviness, melody and great guitar work (more the rhythm work for Metallica and Anthrax) and they are: Rust In Peace, Spreading The Disease, Master of Puppets and Never Neverland….Testament were also a favourite but to me they never managed a totally killer album.
In the case of Annihilator and Anthrax it seems to be widely acknowledged that Alison Hell and Among The Living are the “classics” but to me neither are in the same ballpark.
Anyway………all of those bands bar Annihilator (see later) had only one album that totally clicked with me and Never Neverland was the album that got the most airplay in my bedroom so here it sits in my Top 50 just ahead of the others. The key man of course is Jeff Waters who for a little while there was IMO close enough to world’s most under rated guitarist. He seems to suffer from a condition that makes it impossible to keep a band together for more than five minutes and unfortunately the vast majority of music released since hasn’t been worthy of mention but , when he was in his sweet spot , not many could touch Jeff Waters. He combined the right hand of Hetfield and Mustaine with the left hand of Friedman and I would say in some respects better than Friedman during this period. The combination of crunching rhythms , quieter interludes and progressive, technical ,melodious (h/t JLB
) shredding on this album is about as good as it gets.
One other thing about Annihilator back then is that the various themes (everything from girls confined to home by crazy grandmothers,crazy dreams, general disorder, environmental damage, drunk driving to schizophrenia to macaroni cheese) combined with Jeff’s crazy guitar playing always made me feel like I was listening inside a lunatic asylum
Very cool…I think. Hmm. The second half of the album falls away quite a bit , but the first half is so damn perfect that it justifies its spot.
The follow up Set The World on Fire took the whole Black Album sellout thing to a new level and was a big change in direction – everything from regular thrash to AOR style melodic rock. Like TBA (even more so) it was considered a horrible sell out at the time by diehard fans but taken on its own merit (perhaps as a Jeff Waters solo album) it’s another (their last) great album and of course features a killer rhythm section with our very own Mike Mangini. The guitar playing is possibly even better than on Never Neverland – a classic softer metal/rock album that almost got this spot in the list.
Favourite Tracks:
The Fun Palace ,
Stonewall,
Never Neverland ,
Sixes and SevensHonourable Mention : China - Sign In The Sky