Annihilator

来自加拿大的ANNIHILATOR的乐队。他们早期的作品受到美国湾区（Bay Area）Thrash Metal 运动的深刻影响。但是早期作品由於没有太多特点，虽然也小有名气，但是一直没有公司赏识。然而ANNIHILATOR 却成功在Thrash Metal行将结束的年代。他们在风格中尝试加入 Classic Rock成分，凭藉自己的多年的磨练和经验创造出了属於ANNIHILATOR的风格，用 Alice In Hell 的出色表现一举成名。乐队也成为 Canuck Thrashers 的代表人物。乐队的核心人物 Jeff Waters现在已经成为加拿大重金属领域首屈一指的人物，这张唱片中他担任了除去鼓和演唱部分的所有乐器。相当的精准，所有的声部丝丝入扣。他的结他技术的确是非常过硬，他演奏的快速下切又匀又快，正是ANNIHILATOR的早期特点之一。听着他甩头也是听众的一种享受。旋律化、高速、流畅以及精致的编曲，再加上完美的录音效果，让谁也无法拒绝的ANNIHILATOR的这张唱片。乐手们过硬的技术，演奏这样清晰的颗粒感，爆炸一样的速度的音乐，没有任何受拘束的现象，相反，把自己的特点发挥的淋漓尽致！这张唱片至今仍旧是Roadrunner唱片公司历史上销售成绩最好的唱片，粗略统计全世界销出 250000 张。
 
Canadian thrashers Annihilator are the lifework of guitarist Jeff Waters, who founded the band in his native Vancouver in 1984 — just as the speed metal revolution was getting underway further to the south in the San Francisco Bay Area. Due in large part to this geographical isolation, Annihilator as a band phased in and out of existence over the next few years, with only Waters as a constant factor, but when the driven guitarist's homemade demos finally made it into the hands of Roadrunner Records, the band's career was ready to begin.
 
Released to positively wild public and critical acclaim at the height of the thrash metal boom, Annihilator's 1989 debut, Alice in Hell, was an unqualified triumph and epitomized the state of the art in terms of thinking man's thrash metal, but it was hardly a band effort. Indeed, though they are pictured on the sleeve alongside Waters (who wrote, produced, and played guitar and bass on the entire album), vocalist Randy Rampage (formerly bassist with legendary Vancouver hardcore band D.O.A.), drummer Ray Hartmann, bassist Wayne Darley, and second guitarist Anthony Greenham were little more than hired guns. Not surprisingly, both Rampage and Greenham were gone by the release of the following year's Never, Neverland (replaced by the equally improbably named Coburn Pharr and Dave Scott Davis, respectively), the beginning of a revolving door policy that would elevate Annihilator's musician turnover to Spinal Tap heights.
 
In any event, though not quite as inspired as its predecessor, Never, Neverland did decent business and the band's latest lineup capitalized by touring relentlessly behind it. A three-year delay and more lineup changes preceded 1993's Set the World on Fire, however, and the album's shocking move to adopt more traditional metal and commercial hard rock sounds wound up alienating most of Annihilator's fans, sending their popularity into a tailspin. Roadrunner issued 1994's Bag of Tricks compilation and promptly dropped the band, which quickly resurfaced with a new deal and several albums on Music for Nations (1994's King of the Kill, 1996's Refresh the Demon, 1997's Remains) but never again enjoyed anything similar to their original success — despite Waters' retreat to thrashier terrain. Released in 1999, Criteria for a Black Widow reunited the guitarist with both Roadrunner and old singer Rampage, but subsequent albums like 2001's Carnival Diablos, 2003's Waking the Fury, and 2004's All for You marked a return to Annihilator's unpredictable musical about-faces and personal musical chairs.