ANNIHILATOR — Alice in Hell (review)

ANNIHILATOR — Alice in Hell album cover Album · 1989 · Thrash Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
UMUR
"Alice in Hell" is the debut full-length studio album by Canadian thrash/heavy metal act Annihilator. The album was released through Roadrunner Records in April 1989. Annihilator was founded in 1984 by guitarist/main composer Jeff Waters and the band released three demos before being signed to Roadrunner Records for the release of "Alice in Hell". About half of the tracks on "Alice in Hell" were culled from the demos. "Alice in Hell" made an instant impact on the heavy/thrash metal scene and with 250.000 sold copies it was up until then the best selling debut album on Roadrunner Records.

Stylistically the music on the album is a combination of traditional heavy metal, speed metal, and thrash metal. While it´s both raw and aggressive when that is needed there is also a strong emphasis on melody throughout the album. The album opens with the beautiful acoustic guitar piece "Crystal Ann" and seques right into "Alison Hell", which is one of the highlights of the album. Other standout tracks are "W.T.Y.D." and the fiercely fast-pased "Human Insecticide". There´s nothing sub par on the album though, so the rest of the material are of a high quality too.

The musicianship is on a high level on all posts. The drumming by Ray Hartmann is solid, Jeff Waters delivers one memorable and powerful riff after another, and also plays blistering melodic leads throughout the album (and his bass playing is decent too), and lead vocalist Randy Rampage has a raw voice which compliments the instrumental part of the music well. While the band picture on the sleeve features five guys, the album was actually recorded solely be the three members mentioned above. Jeff Waters handles all guitars (rhythm and lead) and bass on the album.

The sound production is raw, powerful, and overall well sounding for the time. It´s not perfect but it suits the music very well. So upon conclusion "Alice in Hell" is a strong and very promising debut album by Annihilator and they were clearly on to something great and relatively unique with this release. A 4 star (80%) rating is deserved.
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UMUR wrote:
more than 2 years ago
I always enjoyed Never, Neverland more, but this one is great too.
siLLy puPPy wrote:
more than 2 years ago
This is one is special. Probably a top ten thrash album. Many tracks are the best in the genre :)

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