Double Live Annihilation

Unless you plan to go overseas anytime soon during some good metal festivals, there is pretty much no chance in hell tha you are going to get to see "Annihilator" live. So, this is quite possibly the next best thing.

The second live album, Double Live Annihilation, is quite possibly one of the greatest live albums you will ever hear. The quality alone is perfect, as though it was recorded live in a studio. And aside from that fact, this is a complete and actual live show, not just a bunch of live tracks recorded from variou shows thrown in to make a compilation live album.

The concert starts off with the notorious track 'Murder', and quickly leads into material from Carnival Diablos and Waking The Fury with a few older songs before an intermission. Then disc two kicks things off with more of their older songs, with two newer ones thrown into the mix.

"Annihilator" bring such an intensity to the stage during the show that is completely unmatched. The songs are basically entwined into one another with little pause in between, and the crowd doesn't over whelm the band on the recording either, which is another plus where many other live albums falter.

Double Live Annihilation also includes a music video for 'The Blackest Day', which was recorded on a different day then this concert. It also includes a pictoral time-line for your computer in the form of a screen saver, which is definately something an "Annihilator" fan will have on there, if they didn't do one themselves already.

So, aside the high ticket price for this album, it is definately worth it. If you can't see these guys live, then this is the next best thing. And just to hear their older material such as 'Alice In Hell' and 'Set The World On Fire' redone with new members adding their own edge to the music will definately delight any die hard fan for ages to come.

Annihilator come at us in 2003 with a live album. The first in their career. Do they pull it off? Yes. Are there any disappointments? A few.

First I have to say that the overall sound is amazing. It's not too clean and studio sounding and it's not so rough it sounds like a decent quality bootleg. As like most good live albums, many of the songs on this live album sound better here than they do on the albums. With an added energy punch and some really good performances.

The songs from "Waking the Fury" that appear have a highly improved guitar sound and the songs from "King of the Kill" to "Remains" (the drum machine era), obviously, have a majorly improved drum sound. Joe Comeau does a great job of adapting his voice to every Annihilator era and adding his own little touch to it. The guy has an amazing voice and I'm more impressed with him here than I was with his studio work with the band. Randy Black does a great job on drums, Russ Bergquist holds down the bassline well, Curran Murphy shows that he's actually a great lead player, and Jeff Waters as usual shows why he's one of the best guitarists out there.

My only real problem with this live album is song selection. It seems like they chose some of the worst songs from each album to play! There are 8 songs here that I personally would have replaced. Those being "Murder", "Ultra-Motion", "The Box", "Set the World on Fire", "Refresh the Demon", "Syn. Kill 1", "Bliss", and "Shallow Grave". First of all I would have 1 song from the "Refresh the Demon" album and that would be "The Pastor of Disaster" as it has a nice groove for a live situation. "Set the World on Fire" is a pretty boring song. "The Box" doesn't cut it, there are better songs on "Remains" than "Murder", "Ultra-Motion" is dull, "Bliss" is probably only there so the rest of the band could get a short breather, and "Shallow Grave" to me is very disappointing. If I want to hear AC/DC I'll go put on an AC/DC album! I think there are better songs than any of these in the Annihilator catalogue. Just look at the "Criteria for a Black Widow" album which is one of their best and yet there are no songs from it here. I think it would have also been nice to have the "Schizos (Are Never Alone)" trilogy included.

Overall a decent live album but I have some real problems with song selection. A definite buy if you're an Annihilator fan or someone just getting into the band as it does cover all the bases of the bands career (except "Criteria for a Black Widow" DAMN IT!).

As a band with a spotted history, Annihilator play some good songs on here and the sound quality/mix and such is absolutely killer, especially since some of my favorite older songs by them (King of the Kill) are beefed up 1000% with non-crappy-sounding drums, and all the songs from Waking The Fury sound SO much better without that annoyingly excessive guitar fuzz on the original album, etc. Everyone's performances are impeccable, but not so by-the-book that you feel like you're listening to a studio album (I personally hate it when that happens, and am glad it didn't happen here). However, I have one MAJOR bone to pick with this release. There are no songs on here from Annihilator's Criteria For A Black Widow album, which is, quite simply, fucking blasphemy. That was probably their best and thrashiest album since Alice In Hell, and while I like some of their more groove-oriented stuff that appeared on Carnival Diablos and Waking The Fury, I think their set list could have been a little more diverse (basically, a song or two from Criteria would've been nice). But hey, they didn't compile this album for me, and overall I'm quite pleased. Worth checking out.