All for You

To paraphrase the wizened philosophers known colloquially as 'Beavis and Butt-Head', "This sucks...but it sucks in, like, a new way." I was not one to expect that Annihilator, a band steadily on the rise again, if not knocking them out of the park, to suddenly take another left turn into landfill territory, but All For You had other plans. There are numerous examples through metal history of band's dropping a singer with some edge, some bite, some character, for a much more generic and 'safe' sounding front man, Zach Stevens taking over for Savatage comes to mind, and then losing a critical dimension to their sound. That's not to say these new singers lack talent or proficiency or their own, in fact I think Dave Padden hits certain howls and pitches on this album that had me ancitipating more, but in general his performance just takes the band's potential serrated edge and smooths it down to a butter knife level of danger, one that betrays the psychotic lyrics and thematic continuation of the Alice saga that the cover promises.

This is a weird one, though, because as I hinted, there are a few passages and riffs here that really work. I realize that for some this is the nadir of the Canadians' career, but I have to give at least some credit that they are attempting some sort of fresh sound while incorporating the semi-technical thrash elements that broke them onto the scene. "Dr. Psycho" has a few in there, for example, or "Demon Dance" with that really killer opening rhythm and then the strangely hypnotic way Padden's voice is layered over the rapid fire picking progressions. This is often accompanied by more dumb, obvious lyrics and a few really awkward, angry lines where Padden just sounds like any bar singer reared on Machine Head and Pantera with his intonations, but if you could cut away all the chaff from the tasty bits, you might have a few decent tunes, though probably less than you could count on one hand.

I've already covered the worst songs elsewhere on The One EP, the oafish title track or the acoustic ballad itself which offers little more than a passably ear-worming chorus, but there is another awful ballad here called "Holding On", at which point the whole affair just becomes embarrassing. Another offender is "The Nightmare Factory", which has a few lines on which Padden seems to be emulating Jonathan Davis of Korn or a bit of Burton's harsher lines from Fear Factory. It really just feels like his experience with the heavy genre is all taken from the Ozzfest lineup, though the end of this tune does at least have one cool riff sequence. If you cut out these four tracks completely, and then corrected some of the vocal lines, this would not be down in the dregs of the Annihilator discography.

Mike Mangini makes another appearance behind the kit here, and I feel he's a little under-used considering the estimable talents he would then bring into Dream Theater. The production is glossy-clear and that also saps a little of the violence out of the faster parts, but Jeff's clearly still got the riffs, and All For You always works best at its most manically paced. In fact, the album really lives and dies with his playing alone, on the non-ballad tracks, and unfortunately there is just not enough of it to overcome all the shortcomings, and it is often spoiled by a vocal line here or a goofy idea there. I didn't hate this one as much as King of the Kill or Remains, but it's understandable why it is held in such low regard and just another symptom of the band's shaky, inconsistent, decades-long career. I only wish a few of the better riffs here weren't put out to pasture, but saved for the right record.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

Jeff Waters has always been one of thrash metal's most restless creative minds. The first two Annihilator records need no introduction, being universally hailed as technical speed/thrash masterpieces (my two favorite albums in this particular subgenre, I might add) - but I'm gonna come out and say that, up until 2002, every single Annihilator album (regardless of the musical style employed each time by Jeff, with fans never knowing what to expect from a new release) was nothing short of brilliant. Yes, even the more controversial titles such as "Remains" or "Set the World on Fire". I guess I'm just a sucker for Jeff's trademark riffing, and the moment I hear it, I'm instantly hooked regardless of what he's playing - be it speed/thrash, heavy metal, hard rock or even groove metal: it just possesses a unique finesse I truly can't resist. However, there's a moment in Annihilator's career where Jeff did truly jump the shark, with an album whose devastating effects on the band's formula would extend for over a decade: that album is 2004's "All for You".

This is the album Jeff made right after committing the biggest artistic harakiri of his entire career, by firing former Liege Lord singer Joe Comeau (whose versatile performance on 2001's "Carnival Diablos" and 2002's "Waking the Fury" was opening many new doors for the band) and hiring an unknown, inexperienced young boy going by the name of Dave Padden - who would turn out to be, inexplicably, Annihilator's longest-lasting vocalist ever. Jeff was reportedly "blown away" by hearing his audition, and to this day I still can't wrap my head around Waters' enthusiasm for this guy's performance. Dave's vocals will be discussed later on in more detail: for now, suffice it to say that his style owes much more to the commercial alt-rock, nu-metal and metalcore styles of that era than anything old school metal. This might have pushed Jeff to experiment with more modern, radio-friendly styles he may already have wanted to tap into since a few years but never properly could due to the old school background of his past vocalists. Annihilator was not entirely bereft from alternative rock influences in the past: Jeff admitted the song "Punctured" was partly inspired by Silverchair, and the song "Carnival Diablos" did implement some modern-sounding clean vocals in the chorus; however, all these influences up until that point had been utilized in a way that didn't mess with the band's overall dark, freaky tone (on the contrary, at times even contributing to enhance it). With Dave Padden on vocals, Jeff let go of all his concerns, and just went all-in with those foreign elements: the result was a fragmented, disjointed mess of an album, torn between godawful attempts at mainstream smash hits, some badly implemented "creepy" elements from the band's early era, and some fast thrashing that feels surprisingly hollow and half-assed for Annihilator's usually brilliant standards. I still can't believe this album exists, I can't believe someone could picture such an ill-fitting potpourri of musical influences and just go with it - and most of all, I can't believe Jeff went from a modern heavy/speed/groove/thrash monster like "Waking the Fury" to this. So, let's dissect this abomination right from the beginning.

The album opens with a fairly repetitive groove that sounds quite subpar compared to Jeff's usual riff-writing, and then... the vocals come in. An insufferable early-2000's radio-rock chorus you could never expect from Annihilator, sung with the whiniest clean vocals you could possibly imagine, alternated with badly-screamed aggro-rock/metalcore verses which sound like a piss-poor, amateurish parody of the angsty style that was kool and popular back then with all the Hot Topic mall kids. This is Dave Padden's vocal style for y'all. Yeah, I reiterate, this is the guy Jeff Waters was "blown away" by: the farthest thing you could imagine from a heavy/thrash metal vocalist. I still can't believe it while I'm typing it. This guy has to be the single worst metal vocalist I've ever heard. His screams sound awful even when compared to similar metalcore/modern metal vocalists of the time, while his clean vocals sound as boyish and annoying as Matt Tuck's, of Bullet for My Valentine fame nothing less.

Another reason why I find Padden so unbearable is how fake and kinda robotic his voice sounds. I'm not joking: even when he yells in standard thrash style, his vocals feel so plain and disassociated, bearing such a feeling of cold detachment, that they almost feel like an AI is singing. This kind of voice would absolutely work if Padden was an actor playing an evil madman/psychopath, but in the context of a thrash album, it just feels hollow, misplaced and severely underwhelming, lacking any of the energy required to properly complement the music. Annihilator vocalists always had a certain rough edge to them (most notably Randy Rampage - but Coburn Pharr, Aaron Randall, Joe Comeau and even Jeff himself all fit that mold as well), and this roughness went hand in hand with the band's rather sharp heavy/thrash riffing, providing the music with an extra kick of strident, acrid, vaguely menacing craze; Padden's voice, on the other hand, is as sleek, inoffensive and juvenile as it can get. That isn't helped either by the blatant amount of autotune placed on many of his clean vocals (to help what at the time was clearly an untrained guy placed in shoes way too big for him to fill), as it is the case with the abysmal acoustic ballad "The One" - most likely, Annihilator's worst song of all time: imagine buying a metal album and finding this cancerous, sappy turd of a song placed amidst the tracklist, embodying all the most painful, unimaginative clichés of early 2000's love songs (complete with "na na na na" chants sounding like a bad joke at the expense of us all) - along with the other acoustic number "Holding On" (thankfully sung by Jeff himself this time) approaching straight-out Coldplay territory in its over-sentimental banality.

Even Jeff's trademark riffing has taken a massive nosedive, on here: this might be one of his most uninspired records, riff-wise. A lot of the guitar work on "All for You" feels like a bland, forgettable, lowest common denominator rehash of past Annihilator works, just for the sake of having some actual metal to put between one attempt at commercial airplay and the other. The album is packed with lots of insipid groove metal riffs, often directly aping to the early-2000's nu-metal crowd with no half-assed coverups whatsoever. A good example is the song "Bled", whose boring, repetitive grooves are just poor excuses for Dave's ass-raped clean vocals to whine and cry some more in angsty, bittersweet self-pity. Things are usually not much better when the band gets back in thrashing mode: albeit at times more fast-paced than most stuff on the Joe Comeau albums (which bore a more relaxed, speed metal-ish vibe), the riffing sounds like uninspired filler - something I could rarely say for any past Annihilator record, even the more basic ones such as "Refresh the Demon". Curiously enough, most of the faster tracks on "All for You" manage to sound both painfully generic and perversely remarkable in their clumsy songwriting ineptitude, all at the same time: they can generally be remembered only for the wrong reasons, i.e. the ill-fitting non-metal influences Jeff randomly throws in to give some semblance of "variety", resulting in a peculiarly fragmented listening experience that adds even more pain and frustration to the whole ordeal. In order to get my point across, in the next two paragraphs I will examine two particular tracks which happen to embody (each in its own abysmal way) some of the album's worst traits.

"Demon Dance" starts with a fairly memorable mid-paced riff, before launching into breakneck fast-paced thrash - except the riffing this time around sounds completely faceless, cliché and formulaic (never approaching the greatness of a "Human Insecticide", a "Reaction", a "Bloodbath", a "Hunter Killer" or a "Cold Blooded") and Dave's verse vocals are just laughable in their attempts at expressiveness; the only reason I remember this track is its supposedly-kinda-"melodic" chorus. Welcome to one of the worst tropes of Padden-era Annihilator: aggressive songs with misplaced emo/pop-punk choruses randomly thrown in, pretty much like your average post-2004 metalcore band; this annoying trope would even pop up on otherwise pretty good tracks from later albums, such as "Pride" and "Death in Your Eyes" - but, as a general rule concerning most songs from the Padden era, it's no wonder the riffs are entirely forgettable and treated like an afterthought, if those tracks are entirely built around their mainstream-pandering choruses like the most vapid pop music. Well, in the case of "Demon Dance", Dave's clean vocals don't really sound that poppy: they're just kinda weird, attempting to project a quirky/schizo feel over the song, but just sounding like a snippet that was clumsily copy-pasted from an entirely different track - and, needless to say, it's as satisfying as seeing your TV switch abruptly from a channel where they're airing The Simpsons (even if it's one of the weaker seasons) to one where they're airing "Beverly Hills Chihuahua".

And "Both on Me" takes this concept to an ever more frustrating level, being basically a nightmarish, randomly thrown together mishmash of different music genres and influences: it starts with a nondescript galloping thrash riff (basically repurposed from past songs like "Refresh the Demon" or "Denied", only way less interesting this time around), which then suddenly breaks into yet another whiny acoustic interlude; after some more vocal ear-rape provided by our lil' boy Dave, some random stop-'n'-go technical wankery comes in (interspersed with spoken/whispered vocal interludes supposedly simulating a "schizo personality"), developing into a fairly cool noise section (perhaps the only interesting moment on here), only to return to the usual formulaic galloping thrash formula for the rest of the track. Past Annihilator songs had never sounded this fragmented, disjointed and randomic: even the weirder, jumpier, more schizo-sounding ones such as "Imperiled Eyes" and "Brain Dance" still retained a more defined sense of structure compared to this haphazard collage of half-assed ideas. And say what you will about an album like "Remains", but at least each of its tracks still possessed a definite identity, direction and structure, as unusual and off-putting as they may still have sounded to most people.

And yet, when you're dealing with Jeff's stylistic jumpiness and unpredictability, you're still bound to run into some good stuff here and there, even on his worst album ever. "Doctor Psycho" is a very fun track, starting with a fairly good, slightly unsettling clean guitar/bass intro (thankfully sung, once again, by Jeff himself) and then kicking into some blazing "Painkiller" worship in pure old school metal style - if not for Padden's usual whiny emo chorus creeping in from time to time to break the illusion. "Rage Absolute", after a rather bumpy intro, turns indeed into a raging thrash monster with some spectacular albeit simplistic riffing and smokin' hot solos; Dave's melodic chorus still sounds a bit weird and out of place (a more unorthodox approach, such as starting the chorus with whispered vocals gradually evolving into screams of frustration, would have conveyed those lyrics much better), but overall this is the album's best track by far. "The Nightmare Factory" starts nicely with a trippy, creepy-sounding arpeggio and a pretty good, fairly menacing groove riff - but then, the whole thing is spoiled with that stop 'n' go aggro-rock bullshit and those nauseating post-2000 nu-metal vocals, and the song becomes basically unlistenable. Luckily enough, at the end of this final crime against our hearing system, we're greeted by the album's closing track "The Sound of Horror" - yet another one of the few good songs on here, mainly because it's an instrumental so Dave shuts the fuck up for once, and Jeff provides us with some more cool twisted leads conveying what's indeed a pretty "horrific" vibe (I wish the few good instrumental bits from "The Nightmare Factory" were integrated into this track as well). Notice how little space I needed to talk about the good stuff on this record, compared to the endless stream of paragraphs I needed to discuss the bad.

And this, kids, is why "All for You" is an abysmal, repugnant piece of shit of a record that needs to be avoided at all costs, unless you're either an audial masochist or an emo kid. It's a disgrace both on its own merits and in the context of Annihilator's entire career, a nadir from which the band would need way too much time to recover. Despite offering a couple of decent records (2005's "Schizo Deluxe" and 2010's "Annihilator"), the entire Padden era would prove to be an endless nightmare filled with emo-pop choruses and recycled, ultra-generic groove/thrash riffing - two features that would even plague 2015's "Suicide Society" to a severe degree, at a time when Padden was already gone for good. Jeff would ditch most of the bad tropes established on "All for You" only with 2017's "For the Demented" (a criminally overlooked record if you ask me), and his back-to-the-roots would be further cemented by 2020's "Ballistic, Sadistic" (which was very successful instead). Long story short, I wish "All for You" would just be remembered as one of the worst albums ever made by a mainstream metal band, occupying the same rank of renowned failures such as "St. Anger" and "Virtual XI". Both its disingenuous commercial pandering and its lack of compositional focus are infuriating to say the least, especially coming from Jeff Fucking Waters - and not even Mike Mangini's drum performance can make this shitcake any more digestible (the poor guy, albeit insanely talented, does not have much luck with the albums he plays in, and his later track record with Dream Theater would further confirm this). Just blast "Rage Absolute" and "Doctor Psycho" on repeat (if you're able to get past Padden's pathetic vocals), and avoid the other tracks like the plague. Or, even better - mock them, meme 'em to death like you would with Nickelback or Metallica's worst records, and spread the word as much as you can: the world needs to know how much "All for You" sucks and how pathetic it is, the metal scene at large needs to be warned against this kind of musical abortions (especially now that nu-metal and metalcore are making a comeback amongst Gen Z), and even Jeff Waters himself needs to be warned not to do that ever again.

All for us? No, thanks.

P.S. Imagine making such a kickass song as "Weapon X", deciding it's way too good for your shitty thrash/nu/metalcore hybridized abomination of an album, and putting it instead as B-side on a single where the main track is... "The One". Jeff had truly lost his mind at the time.

Y'know when an established band band drops such a giant, steaming turd of an album that they spend the remainder of their years furiously scrubbing it from their canon and/or apologising profusely for its factual existence? Celtic Frost famously did it with Cold Lake, Massacre have done it, Destruction have done it, the list goes on. In general, I hate that approach, but, well, I get it. It must be painful as an artist to listen back to some of these albums and wonder just what the fuck was going through their minds at the time. Where am I going with this, you ask? Well - All for You is an album deserving of such erasure. I can count on one hand the number of redeeming features this album has, and it is, to completely undersell it, a pretty big fucking disappointment after two strong records with Joe Comeau on vocal duties.

And vocals are the first major issue you will encounter here, as a listener. This is the first Annihilator record with Dave Padden as a singer, and he'd not only survive the fallout (that's probably an understatement - did anyone really care *that* much about what Annihilator were doing in the mid-2000s for there to be a fallout?) but last another ten years with the band. His performance here, though, much like damn near everything else about this album, is not very good. His clean singing is overly saccharine and cloying and totally devoid of all edge, and when he breaks into a harsher bark it sounds hilariously forced and non-threatening. Take the album-opening title track. After a pretty nice bass lick opens the song - this is only worth mentioning since it's precisely the only point in the album where I can truthfully say I've enjoyed all of what I've heard - Padden comes in with his whiny clean voice, reciting the song's title straight back at me in case I'd forgotten it. He fails equally hard to sound either compelling or intimidating in the harsher style either - see "Rage Absolute" or "The Nightmare Factory" - but at least he doesn't sound as ridiculous in this style.

However, I will say that for all of Padden's shortcomings here (and just so it doesn't seem like I'm just totally shitting on him as a vocalist - he definitely improved after this record, and did develop into a good singer live, even if I still have my doubts he was ever that great a fit for Annihilator), he is ABSOLUTELY done no favours by the material he's given to work with. And I don't mean the instrumentals - though they ain't exactly Grammy winning material either. I mean he is frequently given such goofy vocal melodies to regurgitate that it's no wonder he sounds a bit ridiculous at points. The entirety of "Demon Dance" and that horrible "na na na na na na na na na na na" bit in the chorus of "The One" bear this point out nicely. Just totally insufferable, unadulterated shit.

I mentioned the instrumentals above, and don't think that they've completely escaped being the targets of my ire. Much of the music here is that exact kind of heavy rock/alt metal horseshit that was prevalent on rock radio in the mid 2000s. The majority of the songs here settle for bland, faceless groovy riffs that you've heard thousands of iterations of before, with the title track and "The Nightmare Factory" being particularly severe offenders. The remainder of the album consists of two ballads, one sung by Padden and one by Waters, and a couple of faster numbers ruined by the vocals. "Dr. Psycho" admittedly has a rather solid, if a little bloated, instrumental, pushing the tempo upwards and serving as a reminder that Annihilator did in fact play thrash at one point and not shitty radio friendly junk, albeit it is completely soured by the vocals and ridiculous lyrics ("What if the doctor was evil, and very, very mean?" Waters posits in the song's intro). To be fair, the instrumentals are on the whole just regular level bad for the most part, it's the vocals which really downgrade All for You to the industrial level shit that it is.

At this point, I'd like to point out that, painful though this is as a listen, it's not all bad. "Bled," whilst being one of the bland, groovy tracks highlighted above, and for sure has some awkward verses but actually has a catchy enough chorus, all around solid vocal performance (*gasp*), and the instrumental section that kicks in around four minutes in is another callback to the Annihilator of old, featuring some blazing Waters leads for one of the surprisingly few occasions here. "Both of Me" is probably the second best song on here, which is an exceptionally low bar in fairness, on account of another decent chorus, but that doesn't change the fact that it's way too damn long and the chorus is about the only decent part to be found in these eight or so minutes.

In summary, most of the songs here are just straight up terrible and those which aren't are almost always ruined by the vocals. It's a trashy, trend-hopper of a record which even in a discography as hit and miss as Annihilator's sticks out for its lack of quality. All for You is an incredibly poor album and if you value decent music in any way you should avoid listening to it. Save your time, save your money and save your ears. Capiche?

Yes, I know, All for You isn't a thrash metal album and could rather be described as a diversified alternative metal release. Some people might call it nu metal or mallcore and I wouldn't even disagree. It's true that Annihilator sounds softer and more commercial than before on said album and might have had the intention to jump on the bandwagon. There are indeed obvious influences from then-popular radio rock bands from Matchbox Twenty to System of a Down. It's also true that this record's productions includes a few too many effects and is overtly gimmicky.

However, I have three reasons to not only like this record but to think that this is actually one of Annihilator's better records. First of all, the previous release Waking the Fury had sounded absolutely uninspired, repetitive and overproduced in my book and the band simply needed a change at that point. This has happened on All for You. As a matter of fact, Jeff Waters had moved back to his hometown Ottawa after the last release and this change might have had a positive impact on his band. New singer Dave Padden might not be the greatest performer from a technical point of view but he sings with conviction and a lot of heart. He gives us aggressive shouts, a few modern metal grunts and some melodic and mellow vocals and he does a fairly decent job in all categories in my book. He clearly is Annihilator's most variable singer. Another new member on this album is Mike Mangini and even though he doesn't always show what he is capable of as one of the greatest drummers in the business, he still delivers a solid job. Jeff Waters has finally found some new inspiration himself instead of rehashing thrash riffs from the past he had already used dozens of times. From laid back melodic lines over slow-paced distorted leads to up-beat modern thrash metal riffs, the guitar play on this album never repeats itself and comes around with a balanced mixture of new surprises and a few old trademarks. You can still hear that this is definitely an Annihilator record despite a few fluffier tunes.

Secondly, as I already pointed out before, All for You isn't only diverse and entertaining but actually succeeds in redefining and revamping Annihilator's sound. We get a few slices of Annihilator's weakness for twisted songs about mental diseases like the quite vivid ''Both of Me'' and ''Demon Dance'' that go back to the styles and topics of songs like ''Alison Hell'' and ''Brain Dance'' in a successful way. The band also delivers some appeasing and emotional campfire ballads with ''The One'' and ''Holding On'' that aren't a far call from memorable tunes like ''Phoenix Rising'' and ''It's You''. We also have some completely new soundscapes like the surprising ''The Nightmare Factory'' that sounds like a brainchild of System of a Down and King Diamond and that convinces atmospherically, intellectually and technically. Even the often criticized opener and title track ''All for You'' is a quite courageous experiment as it mixes mellower tracks in the key of Annihilator's ballads with vivid alternative rock sounds that could from a band like Weezer and even though this approach might sound weird at first contact, it actually sounds coherent end genuinely enjoyable to me. The fact that the band opened the record with such a controversial tune is a sign that Annihilator was finally read to give a damn about expectations and take a risky step forward not despite but because of a more modern sound. The opener is definitely a statement and emotional reactions proved that it succeeded at what it tried to accomplish.

Thirdly, you can clearly hear that the band enjoyed itself while recording this album and that there was an instant chemistry between the different members which also explains why Dave Padden ended up staying much longer with the band than any other singer before. You can actually hear the band members joking around at the end of ''Demon Dance'' and this doesn't sound staged at all. The band members felt free to experiment a lot on this album which can only work if everyone involved is creatively involved and has an open-minded attitude. While some might misinterpret this record's diversity as being headless, the band's new-found creativity, energy and passion really keep the album together. For the first time in a decade, Annihilator actually sounds like a band again and not like a solo project and this fact gives a whole new dimension and soul to this output.

If you have the mindset that Annihilator records most be powerful thrash metal records, you obviously won't enjoy this record but Annihilator has been there numerous times before and you could just listen to King of the Kill and Waking the Fury all over again. If you actually like alternative metal from bands such as System of a Down and the likes and have grown up in the late nineties or in the first decade of the new millennium, you will discover a record that successfully unites elements of past and present in a very refreshing way. The only reasons why this album didn't get a better rating is because some vocal passages sound auto-tuned or at least overtly effect-ridden and because there isn't a song that really sticks out on this consistent high-quality effort. Still, anyone who would like to discover a vivid mixture of old and new school metal elements should ignore the traditionalists' predictable complaints and give this release a fair chance.

Oh God. Hahahaha. This has to be a joke, especially coming right after the rather impressive and determined Waking the Fury. The loss of Comeau yielded some large shoes to fill vocally, but Waters could not have picked a more unintentionally laugh out loud vocalist than Padden. All for You is worse than both Remains and Schizo Deluxe, and it solidifies Annihilator as the proverbial poster child of how to drift monumentally from your origins in an attempt at mainstream success and still fall flatter than Padden's vocal chops on the other end.

It wastes no time in gripping the shaft either, as the title track grooves away for about ten seconds or so, after which Padden's whines take over and totally neuter the credibility of the entire song. The back-and-forth paradigm revolving around the clean chorus and the harsh verses is about as simple as a children's nursery rhyme, but Annihilator still manages to muck it up in the most embarrassing way imaginable. In my review for Refresh the Demon I bashed Waters' ridiculously forced barking, but Padden puts his taskmaster to shame in this regard. As thin and weak as the simpering clean passages may be, his "harsh" shouting is infinitely worse. It sounds like a joke someone does at the expense of the band or music genre in question. Remember the goofy novelty voices Randall used near the end of "Brain Dance" on Set the World on Fire? The ones that made you get the douche chills, but you forgave in light of the otherwise solid songwriting and vocals? Imagine that stretched over an entire album, and even that can't really clarify how irritating the vast majority of All for You is.

I mean, it's difficult for me to even point out highlights or redeemable moments, certainly more so than it has ever been in the past. This isn't too far removed from Schizo Deluxe in general delivery and aesthetics, but it suffers from some seriously overlong tracks like the abominable "Dr. Psycho" and the (almost) equally grating "Both of Me." Even the worst of Remains had the clarity and mercy to stop after a short while, but these tracks just drag on and on, with Waters jamming away like he is playing in a room completely isolated from the rest of the band. He riffs away with confusion and frustration like he is trying to write the second coming of "Ultra-Motion," but can't quite get it right. "Rage Absolute" comes relatively close at first - even if it totally reuses past formulas - but it has some passable moments and a decent solo. "The Nightmare Factory" opens with a pretty cool and morbid sounding stop-start groove during which the guitars have it working, but then Padden comes in and warbles away any potential the track had. Somewhere in here we have the successor to "Insomniac," but it just isn't worth the punishment on the listener's end for what only amounts to a few cool scattershot riffs and ideas.

Then we have the ballads, because Annihilator has always felt the need to shoehorn one or two of these onto every record since Set the World on Fire. I will always argue that Waters has a real knack for writing some great, moving acoustic passages, but can you guess why these suck the big one? Listen to "Holding On," Padden just totally destroys any chance the song has with his meek, diffident whimpering. The unbelievably whiny and lame lyrics certainly don't help the song much, as "Sounds Good to Me" it certainly is not. People still make fun of Randall's smooth, pleasant vocals from Set the World on Fire, but there is no way Padden can be given a free pass under the same circumstances. He atom-bombs nearly every song here, with the instrumental "The Sound of Horror" naturally being the only survivor. It serves as a bittersweet end cap to an effort by a band so far gone. Waters' instrumentals tend to come off as extremely lighthearted and upbeat, be it "Liquid Oval" or "Catch the Wind," but this one has a cool atmosphere and contains most of the tolerable moments on the entirety of All for You.

While Annihilator finally started to get their collective shit together after Schizo Deluxe, albums like this exemplify why the band has become such a joke. How anybody can call this thrash completely boggles my mind. Is this all thrash is, having Waters spastically palm-mute away behind a vocalist that sounds like he belongs in fucking Weezer? Where do we draw the line? To reference a very wise man, thrash just isn't convincing unless you can hear the moshing, the diving, the drinking, the jeans, the sneakers, the hair stuck in the guitar, etc. I should arguably abstain from crying over spilled milk considering Annihilator's relative return to form on their self-titled LP and Feast, as part of what makes their recent albums so appealing is the feel good notion elicited by how far they've come since All for You. Without black there could be no white, without good no evil, and without absolutely abhorrent swill like this we wouldn't be able to use Annie as our resident genre laughingstock. So keep on thrashing, Jeff.

As most of my headbanger friends will tell you, there is a special place in my heart for thrash metal. There’s a lot of genres of metal out there that deserve as much praise as possible, but to me thrash metal , when done right , is the ultimate in musicianship, songwriting, and heaviness. On those three qualities, one has to argue that Canada’s Annihilator is the single best example of combining musicianship, songwriting, and heaviness in the realm of thrash metal. The brainchild of Jeff Waters has never really had any immediate peers; their style is so unmistakable, their sound so god-like in it’s precision, that there really is no other band like Annihilator.

Although the first song and title track is a bit weak compared to other Annihi-tunes, the disc picks up immediately after that with the traditional Annihilator style of "Dr. Psycho", a thrash epic right up there with “Alison Hell” and “Fun Palace.” Likewise track 6, “Both of Me” is also along these lines, clocking in at 7 minutes of really great thrash with cool breakdowns and intelligent build-ups. “The One,” the first European single off the album, is a power ballad like only Waters can write; one of two on the album, the other being the Waters-sung “Holding On.” Probably my favorite tune though, if not “Dr. Psycho,” is definitely “Rage Absolute,” an absolutely blistering all-out thrash metal tune with quick palm-mute runs and pissed-off aggression. A real pit-starter, for sure.

As far as musicians go, Jeff does pretty much everything himself once again on this disc, with the exception of lead vocals and drums. On drums, please welcome back Mr. Mike Mangini, who has played with Steve Vai and Extreme (?!?) as well as who was on the terribly under-rated major-label Annihilator effort that was “Set the World on Fire.” However, I really must bring your attention to new vocalist Dave Padden, who is probably the only man who could have replaced Joe Comeau on lead vocals. In my opinion, Dave has it all. He has a versatility that I’ve simply never heard of (if that’s not a vocal processor on his meaner bits, then this dude is just goddamn scary!), and he has power that is totally indicative of the best thrash singers.

You really gotta hear this guy!!!

Annihilator hits the bullseye yet again…

Annihilator has pretty much always been about Jeff Waters, but it could be argued that it has been a band effort for a good portion of the project's run. Even the three "solo" albums released during the 90's featured some contributions from other musicians. But after what may be the departure of the group's last stable lineup in 2003, we have been given the first of two albums that were completely composed by the guitarist. This is also the second album to feature Extreme/Mullmuzzler drummer Mike Mangini as well as the first to feature everyone's favorite Annihilator vocalist...

Musically, you could say that this album is pretty much the antithesis of everything that "Waking The Fury" stood for. On one hand, this means that the production sees a lot of improvement and rarely gets in the way of things. On the other hand, the progressions that were seen on previous efforts are completely dropped in favor of a more modern approach with a few of the quirky experimental tendencies of the past kept around. While there are a few thrashing tendencies left about, the changes are definitely enough to throw off most listeners.

Oddly enough, I think the drumming is what really stands out on this album in the best way possible. The guitar and bass playing is great and all, but Mangini puts on a strong performance that adds a lot of energy to songs such as "Doctor Psycho" and "Rage Absolute." The vocals are also fairly interesting and show off a good deal of sneering, hardcore-styled shouts, melodic croons, and even some System Of A Down-influenced stammers on "Demon Dance." However, Padden's inexperience at this time is blatantly obvious and doesn't add much to the music in the way that previous vocalists had done.

The songs are also a pretty mixed bag and are some of the band's most experimental to date. You've got a few mid-tempo beatdowns ("All For You," "Bled"), more complex romps ("Doctor Psycho," "Both Of Me," "The Nightmare Factory"), some speed runs ("Demon Dance," "Rage Absolute"), a couple ballads ("The One," "Holding On"), and a nice instrumental to close things out ("The Sound Of Horror"). The complex songs are definitely the album's highlights with "Both Of Me" standing out in particular for its contrasting melodies, "Refresh The Demon" modeled verses, and infectious chorus.

Now I'd like to take a moment to look at the two ballads that have made their way onto this album. While not completely unheard of, Annihilator ballads are rather rare beasts and have been known to be pretty decent on occasion as proved by "Phoenix Rising" and "Innocent Eyes." But there have been a few missteps along the way and these two fit right in with that crowd. "Holding On" is harmless enough; slightly bland in construction but with a gentle vocal performance by Waters. "The One," on the other hand, is pretty much the worst thing ever associated with a thrash metal band. The lyrics are filled with that Hallmark cheese, the guitars are syrupy, and the vocals are more likely to incite laughter than sweetness with their goofy croons and na-na's. But at the same time, it does have a guilty pleasure charm that makes it tragically comedic. Whatever its intentions, I can only hope that the ballad has gotten its serenaders laid many times over. I suppose it's better than "Wonderwall." Maybe...

But you know what's really funny? For all the countless changes that have taken place in this project's history, this is the one album that really seems to made this a whole new band both physically and symbolically. There are a few inevitable remnants of the past sounds but there are even more elements that suggest that a new era has begun completely. Hell, all the band's recent naysayers probably wouldn't be as bad if these albums had been released under a different name! Then again, that seems to be my defense for just about everything that steers into a random, undesirable direction that pisses off the fanbase...

All in all, this is another one of those albums that's a little hard to recommend. It's definitely not an album for purists, that's for sure. The styles presented are not the same as those of the past and the experiments may only serve to enrage. But at the same time, the memorable songwriting does make this the first in what may be a long string of guilty pleasures.

My Current Favorites:
"Doctor Psycho," "Demon Dance," "Both Of Me," "The Nightmare Factory," and "The Sound Of Horror"

This was the last album that I heard of Annihilator’s newest offerings with Dave Padden doing the vocals, and of them it’s definitely the worst. The blame for this can’t be solely laid upon the head of said vocal flunky, but the vast majority of the musical cock ups that plague this troubled album are clearly in the voice department. Between all of the nu-metal and core sounding garbage, the really abysmal spoken parts that Annihilator has almost never pulled off well due to inferior lyrics, and the really frightening sounding mock-opera baritone singing, this just can’t help but beg like a crack addicted panhandler to be bombarded with the rudest derision possible.

Sometimes Jeff Waters throws out some really inspired thrash riff madness that rivals his older material, but the ridiculousness of the vocals all but drowns it out. “Demon Dance” just goes all out with those fast as hell Slayer riffs like no tomorrow, and occasionally breaks down into some decent melodic material, but during the verses Padden comes in with this really ugly metalcore meets System Of A Down vocal vomit. Picture the hottest date you’ve ever had and you’ve got the music, then throw on some really baggy pants, fake teeth, a big red funny nose, and some size 30 clown shoes and you’ll have what the vocals do to this song. The guy actually does a mock gay speaking voice during the closing seconds of what would have been a great song.

There’s a few other songs on here where there are some pretty solid moments that end up getting dragged down by either a really lousy vocal performance or too many unrelated ideas being thrown in. “Both Of Me” would be a solid speed metal song and a slight improvement on the “Refresh The Demon” sound of the Jeff Waters vocal era if it didn’t have that really boring 1 minute clean interlude right after a solid speed intro. Padden does this really goofy sounding spoken part right at the end of the interlude that really doesn’t need to be there. I’m assuming he’s trying to sounding like a guy with multiple personalities, but instead makes Dave Mustaine’s spoken interludes sound like Shakespearean theater. During the verses and choruses of this one Padden’s vocals actually sound like a semi-decent variant on Matt Barlow, and if he’d just stick to this sound rather than trying to imitate Aaron Randall’s “Brain Dance” antics on every song he’d sound much better.

A couple other songs that manage a level of respectability include “Bled” and a couple parts of the overlong “Doctor Psycho”. There’s some lousy singing and half assed ideas frolicking about on both of these, not to mention that the bass gets so active that the songs almost sound funky, but the latter has some good speed metal going on after the first 2 and ½ minutes, while the former has some solid riffs buried under some lame, emo sounding vocals. But beyond these songs, there isn’t much that qualifies as good metal, and in some cases stuff that is nowhere near metal. “All For You” sounds like a really bad version of a Killswitch Engage song with an extremely repetitive groove to it that makes Machine Head sound like Dark Angel. “The One” sounds like it was ripped off of Stained’s last top 40 single, while “Holding On” will probably find a nice home amongst some compilation of really sappy adult alternative ballads in the vain of Oasis or maybe Blink 182 during their later years.

If you liked any of Annihilator’s material before this one, even the lackluster material with Jeff Waters doing the vocal work; don’t bother with this piece of garbage. If Waters had done the vocals himself, we might have had something maybe slightly better than “Refresh The Demon”, but Padden really does some serious damage when he’s trying to sound either dramatic or in any other way emotional. The only way that someone can explain how this band went from “Waking The Fury” to this is by something that this band is fairly well known for, and that is trend hopping. Although you can often get good music out of bands who do this, given the horrid nature of the metalcore scene sullying the airwaves of late, you won’t find it here.

Originally submitted to (www.metal-observer.com) on October 26, 2008.

All for You isn’t nearly as much of a failure as you’ve been led to think. It’s actually a excellent album in many places.

The most controversial thing about this album would be the vocalist, Dave Padden. Padden replaces Joe Comeau, and those are huge shoes to fill. He is hated with a passion by many metallers because he does modern hardcore vocals once in a while. His hardcore screams are not nearly as high pitched or as “forced” as many of the modern hardcore vocals are. He doesn't sound like he’s trying to scream his lungs out the whole time. So for the hardcore style, Padden isn’t too annoying. But what many don’t understand about Padden is that he uses a variety of vocal styles in addition to hardcore screams. The majority of what comes out of his mouth is sung cleanly. Padden has an excellent midrange singing voice. He also does pretty good thrash shouts on the faster songs on the album. When compared to previous Annihilator vocalists, he stands very well. He’s lightyears ahead of Randy Rampage, more controlled than Randall, less whiney than Pharr, and has a much better range than Jeff. I’d say that the only other Annihilator vocalist who’s better would be Comeau. Padden’s performance here shows that he is definitely worthy of being in the band.

Jeff handles guitar and bass, so you know what to expect. The riffs and solos are great as always. But it’s a shame that the band was trimmed to a three-piece like this, because it was pretty cool having a stable, five-member band for two consecutive albums. Having another lead player really helped boost the lead parts. Oh, well. You can’t have everything I guess.

Mike Mangini handles the drums excellently. This album has a lot of variety, and Mike seems to play the right thing for all of the different songs thrown at him. His style is very tight and solid for this type of music.

And now for the music! As mentioned before, this album is a very diverse one. AfY is like a well-balanced meal that has components from all parts of the food pyramid. You’ve got a couple of all-out thrashers, a few groovers with awesome riffs and vocals, and a few plain traditional metal masterpieces (those styles just mentioned would represent the healthy food groups).

Even the tip of the pyramid (the junk food group) is represented here. But the problem is that Jeff doesn’t “use sparingly” like the food guide says to. The junk food on this album would be mainly two songs: “The One” and “Holding On.” And why is that? Well, the answer is simple: they are ballads. I’m not talking about awesome, haunting ballads like “Fade to Black” or “Still Loving You.” I mean shit ballads, sappy love ballads that have absolutely no place on a metal album of any kind. For fuck’s sake, these would be right at home on any pop radio station. What’s worse is that every Jeff Waters love ballad starts out in the same damn way. Don’t believe me? Well just listen to all of the ballads in previous Annihilator albums. The main musical structure for all of the ballads is comprised of 4-7 note scales on acoustic guitar. The pitches of the notes start at a certain point, go up a few notes, go down a few notes and usually return to the first note. I find it impossible to tell many of the ballads apart because the scales sound almost identical to one another. Note to Jeff: please stop with the fuckin ballads; you’re killing me, man!


Enough of my ranting, let’s get onto the songs!

“All for You” is the first song here, and it’s a great one. At first it sounds like a groove song in the vein of mid-nineties Pantera. But all of a sudden halfway through the song Jeff comes in with an awesome melodic riff, and Padden starts showing off his wonderful clean vocals. The lyrics here are quite serious, about Jeff’s conniving ex-wife, and Padden’s hardcore screams work perfectly to express anger. Kickass way to start the album out.

“Dr. Psycho” is pretty much self-explanatory as far as lyrics go. It’s definitely not the first song about evil doctors, but the music makes up for it five-fold. After a dreary acoustic intro, it becomes a great midpaced thrasher with lots of double bass. Padden seamlessly shifts between thrash and clean vocals. Jeff unleashes a really melodic solo section towards the end of the song. He really knows how to keep a song from even close to getting boring.

“Demon Dance” is the album’s first all-out thrasher. After two midpaced songs, it feels like it’s going at ludicrous speed. It’s not much slower than “Darkness Descends,” to be honest. Jeff eventually slows things down a bit for an awesome solo for a couple minutes, then it’s back to thrashing again! The song ends in a rather silly way, with Padden saying “dance, poo” over and over again. It’s almost a given that every Annihilator album will have one or two songs with nonsense/insane lyrics, and that’s what this song’s purpose is.

After an awesome thrash attack comes herpes-sore-in-your-ear love ballad number one. There’s nothing more to say here other than SKIP THIS!

At this point I’m just about in tears from sonic ear rape, but thankfully “Bled” comes on and completely redeems the album. It’s hard to describe exactly what genre this song belongs to. I guess you could say it is a traditional metal song with a downtuned few thrash riffs in places. The verses are mainly midpaced, and the solo section is played on an awesome D-beat (think of Diamond Head’s “Helpless). This song has a very “complete” feel to it when it finishes. It’s like eating a meal that really hits the spot. For those who are prejudiced against Padden but haven’t heard him yet, check this song out. Unquestionably the best song on this album.

After the masterpiece “Bled” we are treated to what I’m gonna refer to as “Schizos Are Never Alone, Part 4.” So why do I call it that? Well, for one, it’s longer, like the Schizo songs are. Two, it shifts tempo abruptly many times throughout the song. And three, the lyrics are completely based on schizophrenia, as you may have figured out by the title of the song. This song is really an awesome eight-minute summary of the album, as it incorporates all styles used, even the ballads in some sections (the ballad section actually works great in the context of this song).

Well, for two songs we’ve heard nothing but variety and progression. But when “Rage Absolute” comes up, it’s time for some more thrash! It’s another really fast one like “Demon Dance,” using the good ol’ 1-2 thrash beat.

The album has had three great songs in a row, but out of nowhere comes another pointless love ballad. This time Jeff sings on it and it sounds even worse because Jeff is really whiney compared to Dave. The lyrics were apparently "too personal to let anybody else sing it." How cheesy.

Okay, I'm ready for a song with some sign of balls again, and Annihilator certainly delivers with “The Nightmare Factory.” It’s pretty much a groove metal number, but it’s really fast for groove. And thankfully, Jeff changes the riffs before it gets boring. I wish more groove was done like this, in a way that doesn't bore the listener to tears.

I was hoping that Annihilator would have ended the album with a full-out speed metal song or something, but unfortunately we are stuck with another “tip of the food pyramid” song. “The Sound of Horror” is a pointless instrumental that goes nowhere. Thankfully it isn’t one of Jeff’s generic acoustic melodies. It is just a plodding groover that doesn’t really ever have a change in riff or tempo, like all of the other non-ballad songs on this album. It just reminds me of why I hate most groove metal. After several highs and lows, the album ends on an unfortunate low.

All for You is one of those albums that can be considered “flawed classics.” When it works, it fucking kills. But when it isn’t awesome, it fails miserably. If you are looking for modern thrash that isn’t totally one-dimensional and bland, be sure to pick this one up.

This was my introduction to Annihilator back in the day, and when I first heard this record I really liked it. I did not really know what to expect, having been lent the album by a mate of mine along with an Exodus CD, but I had a rough thrash impression in my mind.

The first half of the first track is very awkward to listen to, quite a raw, thin production at times, but then it sweeps into this awesome bass driven melody with really good clean vocals. This is not what I had expected. In fact, we do not get what I had expected until the third track! After the seven minute "Dr Psycho", (which has many funny little sections and really cool riffs after a long, somewhat pointless introduction) we get "Demon Dance", the first highlight of the album. Thrash fucking metal through and through, right down to the blistering double-bass and the ripping vocals. The guitar is note-perfect, which is what is expected of Jeff Waters. After this beast of a track, "The One" is a love ballad. You heard. The weirdest thing is, it's actually really good, and well placed on the record! (Trust me).

"Bled" is pretty straightforward metal, with some pretty awesome vocal layering and the best solo on the CD. Next up, the other two highlights of the album - "Both of me" and "Rage Absolute". The former has the most amazing intro, brilliant acoustics and the best clean vocals I have heard from Dave Padden to date - after this, it swirls into the heaviest (and one of the longest) tracks that Annihilator have written, and its pretty devastating. The latter is my absolute favourite, the aptly named "Rage Absolute". Definitely the fastest track, with some great creeping guitar riffs.

The last three tracks are pretty much worthless, but as I said, I used to love this whole album back in the day. The thing is, as this was my introduction to the band (and a very good one for me), I decided to purchase a few more records. What I heard from then on completely dwarfed this album. With respect to "All For You", it is quite a fun album, but not a very good Annihilator album at all. The fact that I did love it back then, to the extent of knowing pretty much all the lyrics, suggests that it still means something to me, although many old school Annihilator fans will ignore this record in favour of the earlier records. That said, it is my second worst album from the band, after "Remains", and I near enough have them all.

An entertaining first few listens, but Annihilator fans will soon get bored. Beginners start somewhere else - I suggest "Alice in Hell", "Waking the Fury" or "King of the Kill".

Jeff Waters has always had a history of testing the patience of Annihilator fans. Set the World on Fire reeked of selloutism (though it was actually pretty solid) and Remains blended a ton of shitty industrial influences into their already watered-down metal formula. But nothing could’ve prepared fans for the auditory holocaust that is All for You, especially after the fucking scorcher of an album that was Waking the Fury. Replacing the popular and talented Joe Comeau with one of the shittiest vocalists I’ve ever heard, replacing most of the speed metal riffs with mallcore rhythms and ballads, and generally just taking a tremendous shit on everything Annihilator had managed to accomplish since Criteria for a Black Widow, Jeff Waters has spawned one of the most infamously non-thrash albums ever released by a supposed thrash metal band, an accomplishment that almost rivals Metallica’s failure with St. Anger.

Annihilator were just starting to get over the hang-ups that had plagued them on pretty much every album since the first two. The band finally had a consistent and talented vocalist, Jeff Waters had virtually abandoned his practice of riff recycling in favor of coming up with original rhythms and leads, and the band seemed like they’d function properly for the first time in over a decade. But the overwhelming lack of sucking ass must have been eating away at Jeff, for no sooner do they come back from touring does he decide to dissolve the band once again and make Annihilator his solo project, similar to the way he did for the King of the Kill album. Ironically, the resulting album is an atrocious amalgam of mostly bad ideas that manages to abandon every positive innovation the band had developed since the KotK album. This sense of thoughtless abandon is evident in every song on here and not a single one begins to offer redemption for this travesty.

The album starts off promising, as the title track has a nice bass intro before introducing a slow groove metal-like riff. This feeling of hope lasts up through when the drums and guitars enter, only disappearing when the vocals come in. The drums are the closest thing to greatness on this album. All the drumming is impressive, primarily since it was done by Mike Mangini, one of the fastest players around, whose talent goes to waste on this. But anyway, that groove riff lasts pretty much the entire way through that song, with horrendous vocals and lyrics to accompany it. “Dr. Psycho” is next, and despite being one of the better songs on the album, suffers from the same problem as almost every other song on here: it’s been done before on previous albums. The slow, mallcorish groove riffs sound just like the ones from Remains. There are occasional bursts of speed metal fury (verse of “Demon Dance” and “Rage Absolute”), but they sound like rehashed versions of the weaker riffs from the last two albums. The lead guitar would be the highlight of this album if the solos didn’t sound just like they did on Waking the Fury. Even some of the lyrics and vocal melodies are reused. Listen to “Second to None” off of King of the Kill and then the first verse of “Dr. Psycho.” The lyrics are similar, the new vocalist copies Waters’ vocal tone, and even the fucking rhyme scheme is the same. Several lines in other songs are ripped straight out of the Annihilator discography as well, firmly establishing this album as one of the genre’s most distinctive examples of self-parody.

And if the music wasn’t poor enough already, the vocalist sends the album even further into disrepair. Dave Padden is one of the worst singers in the history of singing, ensuring that even the songs that are instrumentally decent are rendered unlistenable. Sometimes it’s from his awful fucking voice, other times it’s from the incomparably stupid lyrics; regardless, he finds some way to ruin every track on here and usually does it several times over. One can only marvel at this feat. Sometimes he does it with his horrid Hatebreed-esque shout-singing (“All for You”). Other times he does it with shitty clean vocals that are layered with harmonizing effects (“The One”, “Dr. Psycho“, “All for You“). Worst of all is when he does it with stupid half-sung, half-spoken passages (the cheesy pre-verse to “Both of Me”, the unintimidating pre-chorus to “Rage Absolute”, and the unbearably shitty chorus to “Demon Dance,“ arguably one of the worst chorus passages in the history of music, it’s that fucking lame). Annihilator has generally managed to sell their weak lyrics by having them sung by a solid vocalist, which sort of cancels out the impact (though it’s made clear that they suck when read), but the combination of bad lyrics and bad vocals destroys any chance of this album being remotely confusable with something good. In all seriousness, Dave Padden is the least effective vocalist ever to record on a thrash album. Ever.

Highlights of this album? Well, there are occasional speed metal riffs mixed in with the garbage. The lead guitar is still pretty good, regardless of the solos sounding just like they did on the last album. There’s some nice bass fills from time to time. The drumming is solid, as I said before. Dave Padden does his best (read: worst) Jello Biafra impression on the verses to “Demon Dance.” These occasional slices of decency are it. The album’s final track, “The Sound of Horror,” should have been the title track, as it’s much more apt than “All for You”. This is fifty-five minutes of agony with a few moments of mediocrity. If that doesn’t make you just want to run right down to your local CD retailer to pick up a copy, I’m not sure what would. If you ever come across it anywhere, treat it like you would St. Anger and stay the hell away.

Being the Annihilator fan that I am there are certain things I look for when I go into an Annihilator album. I have a certain check list to go by.

Great technical guitar playing: Check
A sense of humor: Check
Songs with Tongue in Cheek lyrics: Check
Hardcore songs: Check
Ballads Wit 'from the heart' lyrics: Check
Excellent cover art: Check
Vocalist that gets the job done: Check

As you can see, this album has everything an Annihilator fans expect. The technical guitar playing is amazing as would expected. Everything from the bass intro on All for You, to the melodic playing intro to Dr. Psycho to the Slayer inspired Bled. This album is just an A+ on the guitar part. As usual, there is a sense of humor that accompanies the the album as well, especially with the expected 'tongue-in-cheek' lyrics. The lyrics to Dr. Psycho, Demon Dance, Nightmare Factory, and even to more serious All for You are hilarious. I Found my self chuckling one more than one occasion. Being a thrash band, Annihilator deliver major hardcore tracks. All for you is a heavy mid paced song with hateful lyrics about Jeff Waters ex-wife. Like I've mentioned before the track Bled is majorly Slayer inspired. Nightmare factory has a great monster riff. To balance of the hardcore headbanging tracks, Annihilator has always had a few ballads to accompany every CD. The song The One is the Cd's first and best ballad with new vocalist shining. He definitely has a better "singing" than "screaming" voice. The second ballad is just ho-hum, mostly because Jeff Waters sings himself on the track claiming it "was too personal to have anyone else sing it". He is definitely a better guitarist than singer. What seems to be the biggest complaint on the album is the vocalist. Though I agree is not a "great" vocalist per say, he does get the job done. Mind you that Annihilator has never had a "great" singer. Annihilator has always had vocalists that were decent and fit the music well. The new vocalist, like the others, fits the music well. His screams and his singing give the music its intensity and its few emotional moments.

If your an Annihilator fan, I see no reason why you wouldn't like this album to some degree. Is it the best Annihilator album? Of course not. Like most of their catalog, it has its faults as well. If your not an Annihilator fan to begin with, then there is nothing on this album that will change your mind. I just find it a shame that this album is so hard to find domestically in America cause no doubt, like other Annihilator releases, it deserves more credit than it gets.

Annihilator as a band basically fucking sucks. This album is a good reason why. Every once in a while they throw in a nifty thrash riff, but most of the time, it's just modern fecescore... I actually had some hope for this album, given that they titled it after a pretty obscure Artillery demo track, so maybe it was a nod to the oldschool... but it's actually shit.

The worst is the vocalist... man, this guy could be fronting Matchcunt Twenty or something, he's that formulaic and modern and stupid. Also, the lyrics are really stupid: "what if the doctor was evil, and really mean" - well then he'd have to SIT IN THE CORNER AND NOT GO OUT TO RECESS, WOULDN'T HE? Fucken juvenile cunts of verminated stupidity-beasts.

Even when the songs are "aggressive", they suck - like Doctor Psycho has this one great speed-metal break that is total Painkiller at around 4.29 in but the rest is this horrible repetition, and the vocalist is just whining and bitching about his own worthlessness, and some really gheeeey samples, and oh yes the whole song is far too long. And did I mention that the vocalist blows? Then there are entire songs dedicated to this concept, like the opening track... all for you, all for you, all for you...

WELL GUESS WHAT, I DON'T WANT IT.

There's some absolute swill to be found here, like the anti-metal "The One", which sounds like James Taylor on valium, except more pussified. "Bled" has this awful mallcore chorus with this random background vocal track of some guy with an awful stomachache... Both of Me starts off great and then goes into this terrible noise interlude, out of which appears the riff for Refresh the Demon. WE'VE HEARD IT ALL BEFORE. AND WE DON'T CARE.

Man, this album is just really fucking forgettable. But what did you expect; this is Annihilator we're talking about here. They fucking suck.

Just when you thought that Annihilator couldn't get worse than Remains, here comes this latest big disappointment. It's yet another experimental album much like ballad-filled "Set The World On Fire" and techno-riented "Remains".

I have nothing against metal bands experimenting, as long as it doesn't detract very much from their trademark sound. But sometimes they go too far and in turn it results in a catastrophic crash, which is what this album sounds like for the most part.

This album marks yet another vocalist change in Annihilator. Before that, there was Joe Comeau - a great old-school singer who also was the singer
on "Liege Lord - Master Control" album and a guitar player for Overkill for some time. If you ask me, he was perfect for Annihilator. He had a great sense of melody, very good vocal range, and could easily imitate old-school singers like Halford and Dickinson. Unfortunately, he left in 2003 because Jeff and him couldn't work out some mutual differences that stood in their way. Annihilator's record company also thought that change had to happen. Maybe to continue with the trend of changing vocalist every now and then?? We'll never know.....

Anyway, a new vocalist Dave Padden is found shortly after Joe Comeau's
departure. First of all, is he any good? Hell no. Let's get that right out of the way. He is a new school vocalist and he has no place in being in any old-school metal band and would be better off in modern bands like Meshuggah, The Haunted and Lamb Of God. He is decent in songs like 'Both Of Me' for example, but he is absolutely horrible on the rest of the craptacular material on the album.

It brings us to the sound of the album next. Now what makes this album a stinker you ask? Well, look no further than the title track and 'Nightmare Factory'. That's where I take off most of the points for the album. The title track is just a dumb-ass mallcorish groove number backed by an awful clean vocal delivery interweaved with awful metalcore vocals. It wouldn't be out of place on Killswitch Engage, Linkin Park or Slipknot albums at all. And 'Nightmare Factory' continues in the same tradition. Dumb-ass groove rhythms combined with horrible metalcore vocals.

The rest of the album doesn't have that much redeeming qualities, other than songs like 'Bled', Both Of Me and Rage Absolute. They bring back the old Annihilator sound and they're the highlight the album by far. Bled is a decent midpaced number that reminds of Culling The Heard from the latest Exodus album, only it's a bit better. Both Of Me is a long midpaced number with chorus parts that are reminiscent of King Of The Kill song and clean interludes that are reminiscent of Never, Neverland. And 'Rage Absolute' is a nice thrasher which brings back the memories of Phantasmagoria.

There are also songs like 'Dr. Psycho' and 'Demon Dance' which continue
in an old Annihilator sound but they're average at best and they're goofy on vocals too.

Then there are uninspired and dreadful ballads 'One' and 'Holding On',
which are completely useless and have no place in being on any kick ass
metal album.

Finally, the album instrumental closer 'Sound Of Horror' is just a below
average slow groove number, which severly lacks in a quality riffage and fails to keep my interest. For an effective metal album Jeff should stick to writing total riff-o-rama instrumentals like 'Schizos Are Never Alone Part 1 & 2'.

If Jeff doesn't replace Dave Padden with a better vocalist (either Joe Comeau or someone else), then I see Jeff writing more songs like the title track on the next album with the current vocalist.

Totally avoidable!!!

After seeing the cover art for this new Annihilator album and also reading from band's website that the new vocalist kicks ass, I couldn't hardly wait for this one to come out. Well, obviously the whole album was a big disappointment. I was really waiting for a thrash masterpiece but instead I got a vocalist who sounds like fucking alternative rock singer (see: 3 doors down etc.) and my always favorite riffmaster Waters running out of ideas. I mean this vocalist definitely takes some time to get used to. At his worst moments he sounds terribly cheesy (see: the na-na-na parts in 'The One') and at his best he sounds something like Rob Flynn from Machine Head. The singer here ain't even the worst case, man. What makes me really frustrated is the fact that Jeff Waters uses riffs that already have been recorded in his earlier albums. They really pop into your ears and you just can't listen without thinking for example:"damn, I heard that already on refresh the demon album". I mean sure this guy can shred and there are some good moments also, but why to recycle riffs, that's boring. It seems musically Annihilator is also getting soft. The only real thrasher of the new songs was left out of the album 'Weapon X', which actually wasn't so good people keep telling. I mean I think Jeff can do better so why to release average album since he has already done that with 'Remains' and 'Waking The Fury'. Get your shit together Jeff and next time give us something worth waiting.

Usually, there is an extreme pleasure to sit down and listen to an "Annihilator" album. The devil horns fly high into the air on fists of rage, and the sweet aroma or blood and sweat filled the room. Especially when the air conditioner goes on the fritz and everyone decides to turn on each other for the nearest shade. However, this is simply not the case this time.

Every album prior to this one deals primarily with down to earth issues, including such topics as war and loneliness. Well, there is no real war on this album, but they have brought in other realities such as plastic surgery (on track 'Dr. Psycho'), except adding the twist of the doctor being completely psychotic. Sure, that may be something good, but how many horror movies has that topic been based on already?

When the album goes on, you kind of have to fight back a tear. The first song released as a single off the album, 'All For You', holds more of a mainstream feel then anything. And soon you are brought into a world of mainstream-esque construction, bombarded by insane guitar riffs and drum work. The music is good at times, while at other times, such as it is with the tracks 'Demon Dance' (much like 'Brain Dance') and 'Both Of Me (much like 'Never, Neverland' at times), they are meerly recycled riffs and melodies from previous songs.

The album also features a new vocalist, who just simply does not suit the mix. 'Demon Dance' features poorly done paranoid vocals that sound horrible, followed by a demonic growl of "poo!" and a metro-sexual voice of him saying "dance!". However, on the track 'Absolute Rage', his vocals do somehow prevail. But that's just about the only good vocal track on the album, including the sappy as hell power ballad single 'The One'.

Unfortunately, the lyrics also pertain a hint of unoriginality to them, referencing once again to songs of "Annihilator" past. While not exact words taken from previous works, the feel of the vocal work, song progression, and subject matter remain just the same as many other tracks that were recorded before this release.

So, with all that said, let's look at he positives about the album. Sure there aren't many, but there are some. While the album isn't that original and not really a fresh start for Jeff Waters and the rest of the "Annihilator" crew, once you get past 'Holding On' and the poor lyrical work on the rest of the album, the music itself is the only saving grace in the album. All For You may hold a mainstream sound with semi-acoustic tracks and radio-ready cuts, but it's undeniable that many of the tracks hold amazing drum and guitar work. The sheer insanity on some of the tracks alone are hard to find on any other albums from bands in the same style or inspirations as this.

The biggest let down of the album was quite possibly the exclusion of the track 'Weapon X', which is quite possibly the best "Annihilator" track in years. The sheer intensity of the song, and the questionable relationship of comparing someone's anger to that of Marvel Comics creation "Wolverine", leads this song in an amazing direction. It would have been the main reason to buy the album. But, who knows what the U.S. release will hold in store for everyone.

All For You is more of a let down then a highly anticipated come back. with mainstream sounds and unoriginal lyrics and content, the album simply falters as a horrid creation. Unless you have the gall to sit down and listen to the thing over and over and start to appreciate the music on the album, this is one release that will leave a tear in your eye, and not in a good way.