Criteria for a Black Widow

Even though Criteria for a Black Widow was released only two years after the laughable Remains, it bore all the hallmarks of a band coming to its senses, a 'comeback' album not over any major gulf of time, but over a gulf in common sense. If you've heard Jeff's commentary tracks for these albums, he'll tell you himself that he was going through some rough times and that Black Widow was an attempt to get back to what mattered, to a full band where he didn't have to perform all the vocals and instruments himself, and back to a style that put Annihilator into the ears of rabid thrash bands in the first place. And he went to great lengths to that effect, reuniting with Rampage and Ray Hartmann to hopefully rekindle the magic from Alice in Hell. Even the cover, though cheesy, seems like a return to referencing the 'Alice' character in some capacity, and there are self-referential song titles here like "Back to the Palace" or the sequel song "Schizos (Are Never Alone) Part III". With all these pieces in place, did Criteria for a Black Widow restore the faith after a near-decade of dysfunction? Was it enough?

Well it damn near tries to be. Now let me qualify that I don't think bands need to try and always ape themselves to forge a comeback, but rather to take where they were at on those seminal works and then ask what should have come next if the decision making had been better. Criteria is a manic thrash metal album which drops most of the nonsense like the hard rock-isms of the earlier 90s, or the industrial weirdness of remains. There might be a bit of Pantera groove remaining, but its largely unobtrusive, and at least seems to fit the songs where it appears. Where Black Widow falls short is that it does little more than just get the band back to a respectable level. 'We get it guys, and we're back!' Only it lacks the nuance and inventiveness that the band had been on the precipice of when they released their debut album. There's nothing forward here, just maintenance, and sadly a few of the tracks and parts slack behind the rest to create an uneven experience.

It works best when the band are channeling the faster, nastier thrash metal which reminds me of anything from their own earliest works, to a bit of Holy Terror, or Dark Angel, or the like. Cuts like "Back to the Palace" and "Nothing Left" are fairly relentless, with Jeff's leads flailing around and some gnarly vocals that make it feel like Randy Rampage never skipped a beat. A few of the tracks that utilized catchier choruses or melodies ("Loving the Sinner") are also pretty competent, at the very least devastating what the band had been putting out in the fateful 1993-1997 period, but there are a few vocal sections that miss the mark, a few boring riffs here or there, terrible lyrics, and compositions that seem as if they needed a little more time gestating before being committed to disc. For a home recording, it sounds alright, but again it doesn't all feel terribly consistent. The entire time I was listening through this album, I felt like this was a 'warmup' to a truly greater return to form that might manifest if the same lineup could just stay in place.

There was also a bit of buzz around this, more excitement than I had remembered in years surrounding the band, so when I got the promo in the mail (back when I did my old paper zine), I was just happy that Jeff had touched base with himself, with what Annihilator was supposed to be. To that effect, Criteria for a Black Widow is an important transition or de-transition, one that would stave off a lot of foolishness for the group's still-extensive future to follow. Sure, they might fuck up again, but not to the level that they had sunk throughout the 90s. And with luck, since a lot of the traditional metal forms would start to re-emerge from the murk in the new millennium, there'd be an audience again with which to share this newfound lease on the steel. As for the album itself? Forgettable, but not offensively so.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

Aww, Annihilator: a band that's universally revered for their first two albums (rightfully recognized as absolute technical speed/thrash masterpieces) as much as scorned and distrusted for their prolific, hugely divisive, stylistically jumpy post-1990 output, capable of testing the patience of hardcore thrashers all over the globe: mastermind Jeff Waters has always been accused of having too much of an inflated ego to wisely manage his band all by himself - and yet, back when I was exploring Annihilator's rich discography as a young metalhead teen, I couldn't help but admire and sympathize with the man's stylistic eclecticism and whimsical unpredictability from album to album, at times even from song to song (that is, until the Padden era of course, which was too much even for me to bear).

Yet, if you disgracefully chose music as your main job, you have to keep in mind that this blissfully, delightfully self-centered approach to creativity I so much relate with doesn't always pay back, career-wise: Annihilator's biggest commercial fuck-up is without a doubt 1997's "Remains", which was basically Jeff Waters' "solo album" par excellence, and whose experimental edge was pushed to the point of including techno/industrial influences along with the robust groove metal elements the band was already familiar with since 1993's "Set the World on Fire": long story short, "Remains" tanked hard, making Annihilator's fanbase collectively jump ship, resulting in a dramatic sale decrease. At this point, legend has it that Jeff was way more concerned with some huge problems going on in his personal life, including a painful divorce that made it hard for him to focus on music - but going to a Slayer concert gave him a kick in the butt and made him re-evaluate the idea of going back to basics with Annihilator, returning to a thrashier, more aggressive sound and even making the obligatory reunion with the original "Alice in Hell" lineup "for the money" (as Jeff himself put it, in a brutally honest way). So, legendary vocalist/frontman Randy Rampage (R.I.P.) and drummer Ray Hartmann were called back, and the result of this rather phoned in reunion was an unexpected little miracle called "Criteria for a Black Widow" - i.e. a perfect demonstration, along with Deicide's "Till Death Do Us Part", that divorce-fueled albums do often kick major ass indeed.

This cute lil' comeback, released back in 1999 on Roadrunner Records (just like Annihilator's first three albums), did kinda work at the time, managing to bring the band back to at least acceptable levels of relevance - seeing for the most part a definite return to Jeff's technical thrash roots, and delivering the hugest dose of bludgeoning, intricate old school riffage the man had offered in many years. The album does even feature some explicit callbacks to Annihilator's legendary early works, in the form of "Back to the Palace" (an obvious, yet notably more violent sequel to "The Fun Palace", even citing its well-known melodic intro), a brilliant third part added to the "Schizos" series of instrumentals from "Alice in Hell", and even a reworked demo from the late 80's. Yet, the album didn't seem to build a lasting reputation over the years, with many people (including Jeff himself) looking unfavorably upon it in hindsight. I can understand Jeff being unhappy with a desperate album made at a time when his whole world was falling apart and he had to at least get his band back on the market, but what about the audience? Well, they often criticize "Criteria" for being a typical reunion album devoid of any original ideas, and also for Randy's vocals sounding like shit. About the latter: I agree that he sounds slightly less expressive and incisive compared to his legendary "Alice in Hell" antics (and that may have to do with the fact that Jeff used the vocal tracks Randy had only recorded as demos, following a theory according to which vocalists sound better when not under particular pressure), but he's still Randy Fucking Rampage, and even when he's on a bad day, he still shits over most other thrash vocalists out there with his trademark raspy, savage snarls.

And when it comes to the album's supposed lack of ideas: I couldn't disagree more. Yeah I know, it's a desperate reunion album filled with self-referential quotes and callbacks to the band's early works, but it's not just that: beneath the surface, its heart lays somewhere else, in what I'd consider to be a much more interesting place to explore. Yes, the stunning Waters-style techno-thrash riffage is there in all its overwhelming glory (more consistently than on any other post-1990 Annihilator record, which does definitely help its cause): tracks such as "Bloodbath", "Back to the Palace" and "Nothing Left" are packed front-to-back with choppy, pummeling, inhumanly sharp mid-tempos and insanely fast, intricate, facefucking Slayer-like riffs of the "Human Insecticide" variety (sorry, I'm having an orgasm right now just by writing that) - and yet, I'll agree that these songs are less overtly complex and visionary from a structural standpoint, compared to the stunning compositions you could find on "Alice in Hell" and "Never, Neverland": even trying with all your might, you can't really top a song like "Imperiled Eyes". However, the hidden ingredient this record possesses, which makes it shine with its own light and rightfully share its place besides those two immortal speed/thrash classics, is atmosphere: an oppressive, strong atmosphere that gives it a definite artistic identity beyond being just "that one Annihilator reunion album".

This album is dark. Almost perversely dark. The darkest Annihilator album, without a doubt. I've noticed that most people tend to cringe when looking at the cover art, but I've always found it very endearing and a perfect representation of the album's musical content, with the rather intense, sinister color palette and the evil "Alice in Hell" dolls attacking a rather sexy woman who might as well be Alice's adult version. What "Criteria for a Black Widow" truly does is take the latently dark, weird, slightly creepy elements that were only teased (very mockingly and irreverently) on the first two albums, and crank them up to eleven without any restraint on Jeff's part - resulting in an uncomfortable, tortured journey into the darkest corners of a Fun Palace that doesn't look very fun anymore, or rather into a more somber version of the Neverland that, while still wacky and demented to some degree, looks definitely more serious, scary and disturbing than ever. The menacing, sinister grooves at the start of "Nothing Left" are what I hear in my head when I think of this album's trademark atmosphere: you can tell, by listening to any random snippet from any of these tracks, this is a very gloomy, tormented record, even without knowing what was going on in Jeff's life at the time (for instance, I didn't know it when I first heard the album). Some parts of "Remains" did already sound quite dreary and depressing (in spite of the record's supposedly dancelike feel), and even "Refresh the Demon" was quite of an eerily, almost creepily "quiet" album in spite of its overt grooving thrashiness, but here it's different: here, everything just sounds wretched, loud and hysterical.

Those fast, thrashy up-tempos aren't just winks to old school Annihilator fans: they possess a personality on their own, sounding as intense, cathartic and heartfelt as thrash metal can ever get, with Randy's tortured, not-quite-all-there vocals enhancing the unhinged feel of the music. Little classy touches here and there will show Jeff at the peak of his inspiration, brilliantly conveying the torment haunting him at the time: the intense, fast-picked chorus of "Nothing Left" sounds almost desperate in its subtle, obsessive melodic undertone, while the chorus of "Back to the Palace" sounds just as morbid and unsettling as that of the original "Fun Palace" song - and the track does also feature a very emotional, cathartic, kinda melodic interlude, tying the song up effortlessly before returning to its trademark intro and blasting into the final verse. Such mellower melodic sensibilities aren't either absent from the rather mid-paced number "Loving the Sinner", which sounds a bit like regular Bay Area thrash and might be the album's less overtly intense piece. On the other hand, reworked demo track "Sonic Homicide" (originally an instrumental called "Powerdrain") works as an integral part of the album's somewhat messed up, yet deeply cathartic nature: the song blasts in with a hyper-fast thrash riff (one that kinda reminds me of Tankard's "Zombie Attack", but more intense and hateful) and Randy screaming like a maniac (reinforced by a rather love-or-hate vocal distortion I personally happen to adore) what may be "Criteria"'s mission statement, in a crescendo of power that reaches its full apex at the end of the song, before making way for the melancholic clean guitar instrumental "Mending" to pick up all the pieces left in the wake of this, indeed, annihilating record.

"Blasting and ripping it apart,
Intense pain numbing to a pinch
Tearing the fabric of the soul,
Killing is inch by inch
Listen to the words of the sick fuck,
C'mon and drop to your knees
You want compliance, you want control,
Devastation done with ease
Sonic homicide,
a torture that's burning through the ears
Sonic homicide
beware the killing is for real"

And that's not all yet: there's so much more to "Criteria" than just blind fury and aggression. The album's brainier, more overtly technical side comes off especially on the "Schizos - Part III" instrumental (less speed metallish than its predecessors, yet packed with a considerable amount of high quality thrashing extravaganza and guitar theatrics) and the rather intriguing, often overlooked track "Double Dare", which might contain the most contorted patterns of the entire album, coming the closest to the glorious non-linear songwriting of "Alice in Hell" and "Never, Neverland" - while Randy's somewhat "sensual" vocals lulls his victims into Annihilator's malevolent trap (with the "no one can see you" mocking chant over the weird noisy section resembling the most sickly playful moments of earlier albums).

And that's where we reach the album's true core, beneath any surface musical trait: this dark, sinister brand of sensuality is a fundamental part of "Criteria"'s identity (being it a deeply erotic, sentimental, kinda obscene record), and it's even more pronounced during its most controversial songs: those being, "Punctured" and the ultra-divisive title-track - the album's only incursions into modern, groovy territory, to the dismay of most old school thrashers. Regardless, these songs are abundantly of my liking, possessing the type of sinuous, delicate, non-boneheaded riffing I usually tend to enjoy the most in groove numbers, and dripping with a dark, unsettling, menacing atmosphere - especially "Punctured", which might be my favorite "groovy Annihilator" tune ever (maybe on par with "Annihilator" from "King of the Kill"). On these songs, Randy sings both suavely and gratingly at the same time, perfectly complementing the sinister melodies, in a way that almost comes off as deliberately creepy and debauched - most notably on the near-demented, bass-driven title-track (which is no surprise at all, given all those uncomfortable sexual innuendos in the lyrics). Far from being filler material, these two tracks put "Criteria"'s wretched, obscene, degenerate nature in full display, stripped down of technical frills and 80's virtuoso cover-ups.

Is this Annihilator's greatest album ever? Well, pretty fucking close for sure, just behind their first two legendary records which still remain unbeatable riff-wise and song-wise. One thing is certain: this is definitely the most intense, extreme, unwholesome record Jeff has ever dared to put out, and the only one where he may have deliberately intended to hurt his listeners both psychologically and physically. Believe me: if you look past surface musical ingredients and reunion slogans, this is much more fucked up and out-of-the-box than even "Remains" was - and all this, without the bleak, dancelike industrial soundscapes of that album (in this regard, I truly believe those two records put together may constitute Jeff Waters' most misunderstood body of work, each of them in its own way). It seems like 1999 was a pretty fucking nice year for dark, screwed up mainstream rock/metal albums, especially from the Roadrunner roster (most notably, a certain green giant from Brooklyn was not exactly having the time of his life, to put it tactfully) - and surprisingly enough, Annihilator were among the bands to compete in that field, albeit going over most people's heads compared to other, better-known acts. Regardless of its popularity and reputation, I've always been obsessed with "Criteria for a Black Widow", and whenever I revisit Annihilator's discography, this is one of the records I find myself spinning the most: its extreme, merciless thrashing and somber, deranged, kind of edgy vibe never cease to enthrall me. Damn you, Jeff Waters: the killing was for real, indeed.

"Slipping into madness, can't deny the blame,
Can't make out reality, can't deny the shame
Years and years of torment, life just hanging on,
It's time to change the coarse, time to see the dawn"

Man, I so want to like this album so much more than I actually do. On paper, Criteria for a Black Widow sounds like an exciting prospect. After the complete failure of Remains, recorded as a one-man Jeff Waters project, Waters decided it was high time to step down as vocalist, and went in a familiar direction when recruiting a new drummer and vocalist; the duo chosen by Waters on this occasion were Ray Hartmann and Randy Rampage, respectively. Yup, that makes Criteria for a Black Widow a reunion of the lineup that recorded Alice in Hell. And how does it stack up compared to the band's beloved debut record, you ask?

Well, the answer is pretty fucking badly. Criteria squanders a promising opening salvo and quickly devolves into more of the bland crap which polluted the worst of Annihilator's '90s work. And it's not helped by Randy Rampage's dramatic decline as a vocalist either. I mean, he was never technically good to begin with, but on Alice in Hell he barked his way through the songs with enough charisma and punkish swagger that he added to the album overall. Here, though, he's lost much of the edge and bite to his voice - maybe due to being out of practice, maybe due to his allegedly rampant (no pun intended) alcoholism that saw him unceremoniously booted out of the band midway through the tour for this album - and is asked to sing on a much more diverse range of material than he was for the debut. Take the title track - an unrelenting near-six minutes of total swill - where Rampage is seemingly asked to actually sing rather than deliver his trademark hoarse shouts, and good god does he do an awful job of it. He stumbles his way through, sounding uncertain, thin and grating, and just generally making the whole song sound like a complete ordeal. Even for the thrashier numbers, Rampage does okay on the first few songs here, but by the time "Nothing Left" rolls around you're tired of his one-note, rote hollering. Since I'm on the topic of vocals, though, it's worth giving Jeff Waters himself a shout-out here, who is largely tasked with handling the more melodic backing vocals here, and he does a lot with a little, generally offsetting Rampage's approach very well with a sedate baritone he usually reserved for the more ballady material in the years when he was the lead singer.

Musically, though, Criteria for a Black Widow had some potential. Despite still being some way off, this is the closest Jeff Waters ever got to replicating the riffs of Alice in Hell (important note that I don't mean in quality, I mean in sound and style). "Sonic Homicide," for one example, is basically "Human Insecticide," - and a lot of the other songs here are driven by those same kind of lightning-fast, technically driven riffs that hurtled the debut forwards at 1000 miles an hour. Notably, many of those stale groovers that bogged down a lot of the prior Annihilator albums are mostly gone - there are a couple of slower numbers here ("Punctured," "Mending" and the title track, to be precise), but beyond that this is uniformly fast, although to tell the truth that's not necessarily a good thing here; the riffs aren't as memorable as the ones on the first album, and Rampage sounds like he aged thirty years in the ten separating this and the debut, so the effect you get down the back half of this record is largely one of overwhelming boredom.

And a huge reason for that is the way Criteria for a Black Widow is sequenced; this album is a fine example of one which blows its load early and spends the next half-hour or so in bed sobbing furiously. "Bloodbath" is an obvious choice for an opener, on account of the fact that it stands absolutely head and shoulders above every other track here. It's a furious thrasher which lumbers out of the gates slowly and heavily before suddenly accelerating into a breakneck riff with no warning, and not letting up again for the rest of its duration. "Sonic Homicide," whilst not my favourite track here, is more of the same and is a decent choice for a closer (technically "Mending" is the closer but it's really just a brief instrumental interlude). The trouble is literally everything between "Punctured" and "Sonic Homicide," though. In that second half of the album, there isn't a single memorable track to be found, making it a real slog to get through this album once track 3 comes and goes. I will, however, once again temper my criticism with cautious praise for "Schizos (Are Never Alone) Part III," which is a solid though rather cobbled together collection of riffs which seemingly couldn't be repurposed into any of the other tracks here. On the strength of the guitarwork it's a pretty fun song but it's quite obviously just a case of Waters going, "Oh, by the way, here's a bunch of stuff I couldn't do anything else with."

That's frankly more or less all there is to say about Criteria for a Black Widow. On account of the bad vocals and hit-or-miss songwriting this lands on the slightly worse end of average overall, with the score being held up by the fact that "Bloodbath" is really fucking good and there's very little here which actually sinks to being bad. But at the same time, as I've mentioned before, a whole lot of this album just goes in one ear and out of the other, and that's nothing which a new vocalist would've fixed, although Rampage certainly contrives to make the whole experience worse. Really, I respect that Jeff Waters went out and got the old lineup back together, but this ultimately pales in comparison to the debut, and Rampage getting kicked out mid-tour is ultimately kinda the perfect metaphor for this era of Annihilator. Definitely give "Bloodbath" and maybe "Back to the Palace" a spin, but really unless you're a real die-hard fan almost all of this is pretty dispensable.

Annihilator, to me, belongs in the same category as the other thrash metal greats. With that being said, bands can make mistakes. Criteria For A Black Widow is no exception to this rule. I have very mixed feelings about this album, probably because it's a very mixed bag. Several songs are almost unlistenable for fans familiar with their earlier works such as Alice In Hell or Never, Neverland. There’s also several songs that really channel those earlier works, which are in my opinion the peaks of the album.

I guess I’ll start off with the bad, since there’s several issues. Obviously the artwork is horrible. It’s the weirdest shit I’ve seen on an album and honestly it kind of doesn’t make you wanna put it on when you see it. The production is.. alright. It’s nowhere near as bad as the clippy messes being pumped out of the nu-metal scene circa 2000, but it is still not great. The guitar tone of Alice In Hell is much better, and Criteria was released 10 years after the fact. Returning member Randy Rampage’s vocals, which I'll talk more about later, definitely pale in comparison to his work on Alice In Hell. You may notice that I’m making a lot of comparisons to Alice In Hell, but that’s one of the things this album was meant to recapture. The reason Jeff Waters brought back the Alice In Hell era members such as Rampage and drummer Ray Hartman was because he saw a Slayer concert that inspired him to return the band to its thrash roots. I personally like Coburn Pharr from their second album better, but Rampage is not really bad by any means, and his unfortunately lackluster performance on here isn't the main reason this album sucks, so I’ll give him a hesitant pass.

The real reason this album could be determined to suck is that half the songs are hard to stomach. I don’t mean to say there’s nobody who enjoys them, but songs like the perplexingly bad title track and the huge departure from any sort of thrash formula we see on Punctured and Loving the Sinner must have left some heads scratching. The weirdest part is, Punctured and Loving the Sinner aren’t really THAT bad. Punctured features a bit of a nu-metal breakdown-esque vibe which is pretty uncharacteristic of Annihilator up until now. It’s not bad, but not really that good either. Unfortunately, the only part I really like about it is the breakdown, the rest is either cringey or underwhelming. What Loving the Sinner suffers from is bad lyrics and a bad vocalist for the song. Rampage is a vocalist who yells and barks, so why is he all of a sudden singing so sentimentally? Coburn Pharr sang cleans so much better than Rampage. Go ahead and listen to the song Never, Neverland and try to say with 100% honesty that Pharr wouldn't have killed it on this album's cleans. There exists a bonus track out there with Waters in vocals, which is a better fit, but still! Pharr was great! Sonic Homicide, a reworked version of a leftover Alice in Hell demo called Powerdrain, is an example of a song where Rampage's craziness is done right, but the production is done wrong. His vocals are heavily distorted for some reason, (I mean it fits with the title I guess?) Bloodbath, the opener, is fast and fairly solid, but it definitely would have benefited from being a minute or two shorter, since it really starts to drag along after the 40th time you've heard "BLOOD. BATH!" in one sitting.

I think my main problem with the album is that it’s super inconsistent, which is jarring on a full playthrough. There are definitely tracks that warrant a listen, like Back to the Palace (which is a callback to The Fun Palace from Never, Neverland), Schizos Part 3, (a continuation of Alice In Hell’s instrumental assault), and even Sonic Homicide, despite suffering from the strange production choices. Back to the Palace is like a sequel to The Fun Palace where the narrator of the song isn't the emotion of greed in a murderer's mind manifesting as an ethereal palace-keeper in a dream, it's narrated by the murderer himself! It's also far less melodic, despite many callbacks to the original song in riffs, with its blazingly fast thrash reflecting the killer's fractured and brutal personality as compared to the original's whimsical, technical harmonies. Another fast, return to thrash type of song is Nothing Left, despite a bit of a boring delivery from Rampage and having somewhat similar riffs to the new Schizos song. Though, they are on the same album, might as well mesh, right? Double Dare also comes out alright if you ignore the awful interlude, (fun fact, I actually tested this after originally thinking about that, edited the song to cut that garbage out, and it actually sounds good!) There's clearly blueprints of something great hidden inside these tracks, but there’s usually some glaring weakness in each song that kind of takes you out of the experience.

Several of these problems are actually explained by Waters on the commentary bonus track from the deluxe version (which is on YouTube if you don't have it). Waters essentially says that just about every vocal take by Rampage was literally the demos, i.e. he didn't have him come back in to do a better take when he was recording the rest of the album. What a dick move! Apparently his reasoning was that singers feel less pressure when it's not the real take, but that's pretty shoddy reasoning. Demos aren't supposed to be the final version. Anyone who has ever recorded knows that demos are meant to be disposable. Sure, I'll admit that if a take is THAT good, you might consider keeping it. But Randy didn't sing his heart out here, and the album thereby suffers. Another thing he explains is that the distorted vocals on Sonic Homicide (which was actually gonna be the title of the album but the execs didn't like it, a much better choice if you ask me), were to make it "extra heavy." I don't really think the effect really accomplished that at all though. If you really want distortion on there, don't feed his vocals through a Metal Zone pedal.

All I can say is that there’s probably something on this album for fans of every era of Annihilator up to this point. Maybe even for the one person out there who liked Remains, too. It’s an extremely mixed bag with several hits and several misses. If you’re gonna listen to it all the way through, I hope you have the skip button handy.

Jeff Waters is always making the same boring jokes when Annihilator's playing a show in his hometown Ottawa. Maybe it's because he doesn't feel strong enough to play twenty songs a night anymore and prefers to tell repetitive anecdotes for half an hour to only play fifteen tunes. One of his favorite jokes is about making fun of international fans who aren't able to pronounce Annihilator's band name correctly which shouldn't be a surprise since it's a rather complicated word. While Japanese fans call the band An-ni-hi-la-tô, Jeff Waters seems to be most amused about a crowd that once called his band Anal Eater. Why do I mention this? It's obviously because of the ridiculous cover artwork. On the positive side, the young lady could actually look attractive in real life. On the negative side, we see her taking a shit in a hole with a removed sewer cover that seems to be the entrance to hell in some sophisticated back yard while four ugly puppets catch her in flagrante delicto and menace her with knives, pitchforks and scythes. Whoever had the inspiration for this cover artwork and honestly thought that would be a cool idea was either high or a complete idiot. As if the terrible artwork representing an improvised shithouse weren't laughable enough, most of Criteria for a Black Widow was actually recorded in Jeff Water's bedroom and that's not a joke.

So, what's new with Annie Hi Later? After the controversial solo effort Remains, Jeff Waters decided he needed some real-life friends around him after a nasty split with his wife and got back in touch with former drummer Ray Hartmann and former singer Randy Rampage. It's no surprise then that Criteria for a Black Widow goes back to Annihilator's roots and the legendary Alice in Hell record ten years earlier. There aren't many bands that have successfully gone back to their roots or recorded convincing sequels of their early classics and Annihilator is another example that living in the past is generally an awful idea. Instead of only going back to the aforementioned release, this new output also pays homage to Never, Neverland and rehashed the riffs of ''The Fun Palace'' in rather uninspired ways on at least two different occasions.

Criteria for a Black Widow is Annihilator's most aggressive record and also one of the band's least imaginative outputs. The mixture of aggressive Exodus and Slayer riffs, low bass guitar tones and dry drum sounds with a sterile modern production might work once or twice like in form of the pitiless opener ''Bloodbath'' but after a while, this strategy reminds me of a misled rebellious kid trying to show off how cool and brutal it is. Tracks like ''Nothing Left'' are aggressive but nothing else and are as pleasant to listen to as getting beaten up by a crowd of angry hooligans. On a positive note, one could say that this record's oppressive atmosphere and clinical tone is more consistent than the past few albums that felt more like compilation albums but to be honest, Criteria for a Black Widow is quite annoying and exhausting.

What the hell happened to Randy Randall? He had delivered a quite charismatic, diversified and entertaining performance ten years earlier but the only quality remaining ten years later is that he still sounds charismatic but not in a positive way. His throaty and raw vocals fit to the aggressive instrumental side of the record but also get quickly annoying. He never even remotely reaches the vivid quality of a song like ''Alison Hell'' ten years earlier.

What does it tell us when two out of ten songs and actually one fifth of the album consists of instrumental tracks? It shows us that a band is running out of ideas and might not have enough quality material for a legitimate full length release. While this is definitely the case here, the two instrumental songs are among the better tracks because they offer more than angsty shredding and mean vocals. ''Schizos (Are Never Alone) Part III'' has a title that doesn't even try to hide that the band is trying to copy itself but it's actually a quite dynamic song that evolves from a calmer and more atmospheric section and transitions fluidly towards an angrier swagger. ''Mending'' is a calm coda that ends a record that is quite hard to digest on an almost dreamy note.

Ironically enough, the worst song on here is actually the title track ''Criteria for a Black Widow'' that sounds like a nu metal track with limited instrumentation and extremely repetitive and redundant lyrics. To make matters worse, the track even comes back haunting us as reprise in a short hidden track. The band at least tried out something new with this tune instead of living in the past but it sadly is a failed experiment. On a side note, Jeff Waters first wanted to call this record ''Sonic Homicide'' which is actually an equally terrible track with its nerve-firing distorted vocals that are way too loud in the mix.

Even though Criteria for a Black Widow is an overall underwhelming release, there are still a few positive points. As mentioned before, the brutal ''Bloodbath'' is a potent opener that takes no prisoners. ''Punctured'' has a sinister atmosphere that reminds me of a more aggressive and revamped version of a track in the key of Alice Cooper that would fir perfectly on the soundtrack of a horror movie or video game. This song is probably my favorite on here. ''Loving the Sinner'' is probably a nasty rant against Jeff Water's ex-wife lyrically but the track has its moment with some technically excellent guitar play and a few chilling breaks with a pleasingly smooth atmosphere. The two instrumental tracks are unnecessary but still enjoyable as I mentioned before which means that half of this album is okay and the rest is rubbish in my opinion.

In the end, Criteria for a Black Widow is not utterly terrible and certainly has its very own aggressive and oppressive atmosphere but it's clearly one of Annihilator's least imaginative releases. If you feel like banging your head against the wall and are looking for a contemporary interpretation of extreme thrash metal in the key of Exodus or Slayer, then you can give this release a chance. If you are looking for creative, diversified and intelligent song writing or a quality return to the Annihilator's first two albums, you might get disappointed and should rather skip this effort. Even regular Annihilator fans should know that this album really is for die-hard collectors only.

Why do I put myself through this? This is a rare reader request, but to be honest I am content to finally close the book on Annihilator, and Criteria for a Black Widow was intentionally saved for last, and oh boy let me tell you, this one is an experience. Advertised at the time courtesy of the reunification of the "classic" Annihilator lineup (or however close we can get to that) sans Wayne Darley (who never rejoined the band after the '93 touring fiasco), many were pining for a return to form, or hell anything other than the bizarre crap Waters was pumping out on his own like Remains and the sort.

I'm not one to account too heavily into face value, but I really have to get some of this off of my chest right away. The thoughts running through my mind upon first experiencing this included, but were not limited to: Is this cover art a fucking joke? Where is Jeff's girlfriend from the artwork of Set the World on Fire and In Command? Who is this bimbo, and why does she look like a clown? Why do Davis and Hartmann look like they've aged thirty years since Never, Neverland on the back cover? Parallel to that, why does Waters never seem to age at all? Rampage got kicked out of the band on the subsequent tour for being a blithering drunk? You could have fooled me! He sounds like they propped him up in the studio here and simply recorded whatever rants he decided to espouse in arbitrary fashion. All of the pain elicited by these bizarre happenings is punctuated by the fact that musically, Criteria for a Black Widow is quite respectable for an Annihilator record. Its place in the timeline does not necessarily belie the output, as this is definitely closer to Carnival Diablos than King of the Kill and Refresh the Demon.

This means that amongst a morass of overproduced groovers, we can find a few solid thrashers tucked into the folds. Annihilator have simply never been able to pull groove off, as Waters wholly fails to evoke the bouncy subtext so critical to the style. Instead, he just slows his technically-inclined riffs down to the point that they logically become something else altogether, and there you have it: "The Box," "The Perfect Virus," "Punctured;' all among the band's worst material. Criteria for a Black Widow is clearly no exception here, and what really hurts it even further is honestly the return of Rampage. Rampage as a vocalist means power ballads are out of the question, and there goes the only possible redeeming quality of '90s Annihilator out the window. There are some clean vocals dispersed about, like on the chorus of "Loving the Sinner," and as usual Waters is pretty decent in this regard, so more of that, please.

Instead, we get a number of spastic, faster numbers that while fairly invigorating in isolation, fail to stick deep in your cerebrum afterward. Examples of this are "Bloodbath" and "Sonic Homicide," both baring their teeth in a rather intimidating manner, but easily diffuse into the rest of the band's catalogue at the end of the day. The positive exceptions to the rule here are "Back to the Palace," parts of the title track, and "Schizos (Are Never Alone) Part III." The latter is mercifully an instrumental and contains all of Annihilator's better features all condensed into one song. A spectacular acoustic opening as expected, followed by a swarm of tense riffs and ricocheting leads; a great track. It shouldn't be surprising that "Back to the Palace" features a reworking of the riffs from "The Fun Palace," but it just takes everything good about the song and makes it slightly worse. Somehow this still manages to be a highlight, which is quite telling to be frank.

Rampage just kills this for me, though. He simply didn't fit Annihilator's style anymore at this juncture, and while I can't blame Waters for giving this lineup a shot, I'm sure he was relieved to get Joe Comeau out of the entire ordeal, who asked to join on the spot during the tour with Overkill when Rampage was rightfully sacked. Instrumentally it contains some of the band's greater work, but Criteria for a Black Widow is one that should probably be skipped on the whole. Check out "Schizos (Are Never Alone) Part III" and maybe give the album a whirl if you were exceptionally fond of the Comeau era of the band, as that is the closest parallel that can be drawn here. As for me, I'm just glad this is all over. For the few of you still scratching your heads over my opening statement, I will never review the debut, as I generally abstain from appraising the classics, which it certainly is; and as stated in one of my earlier reviews, I don't consider Metal a true Annihilator record.

No one can deny the contribution of Jeff Waters and his band Annihilator to the music that we all love. Though, not the biggest band in heavy metal, they gave at least two great albums, Alice in Hell and Never Neverland. In 1997, Annihilator released the Remains album with Waters on the vocals. Basically, he was one band himself. Remains was a very controversial album that divided both critics and the fans. So, Annihilator’s, or should we say Waters’, next step had to be very careful.

It appears that Waters was not too satisfied with his vocals on the previous albums, so he decided that that the best thing to do would be to find a new singer. And he did. His name was Randy Rampage and if it sounds familiar you are right. Their first vocalist had returned to give them the push they needed since their already low popularity had decreased. Ray Hartmann took back his place behind the drum kit, completing the puzzle.

An expression says that you cannot judge a book by its cover. In our case, Criteria for a Black Widow, Annihilator’s new album, features on its cover the young lady that appeared on Set the World on Fire, who is also supposed to be Waters’ girlfriend. The line-up and the cover are not criteria enough for you? Then, you will need to wait until the first riff begins. Clearly Annihilator make an attempt to go back to the early days and to the sound of Alice in Hell.

All the songs are written by Waters and their friend, John Bates has helped with some of the lyrics. In general, Criteria… is a quite good release with its few bad moments. Same old Waters, same old Rampage. After a decade, he can still deliver! I don’t know how things went in the studio between the two of them but the result turned out well.

Now, let’s start with what NOT to listen to. The self-titled song is nothing but a big load of shit! What on earth were they thinking? Apart from the solo there are no riffs, it is mostly the bass guitar and the lyrics are so boring with Rampage repeating: can you this, can you that, blah blah. A total waste of six precious minutes. Then we have Double Dare, which is quite fast but really dull. They are trying to play some thrash there but somewhere along the way they lose track of their intentions. There is nothing interesting in that song and no one will blame you if you skip it.

There are two instrumentals in the album and I can’t understand why. Okay, Schizos Part III is not bad; it’s the early typical sound of Annihilator. The only problem is that it shouldn’t be that long in duration. Three minutes would have been more than enough. On the other hand, Mending is totally boring and was added in, just to complete the fifty minutes in duration. They have done silly and weird things in the past like Braindance but this one is completely meaningless. I guess they had run out of inspiration at the moment. Also, Punctured is a song easy to listen. It is kind of a mid-tempo one, which gets a bit faster and heavier at the refrain. You can say that it is not that bad in the end.

Now, we are getting to the good stuff. Nothing Left is worth listening. It’s fast and steady creating a feeling to start breaking things around you. It could have been written for the Alice in Hell album. In general, everything in here gives the sensation that this only Annihilator’s second release. So does Sonic Homicide. As soon as it blasts off, the adrenaline hits the ceiling. Somewhere in the middle, a slow bridge fools you but when the light turns green again, you feel the pieces of yourself scattered on the wall. The vocals are kind of “computerized” but don’t mind that. Thrash motherfuckers!!

A song that differs from the rest is Loving the Sinner. Its basic riff is more heavy metal and less thrash. More Judas Priest than Exciter. Nicely done guys. It is exactly what I would expect to hear from Waters. Well, once metal, always metal. But now you must hold on to something. Don’t let yourself go, for the Bloodbath begins! This one’s a killer. Absolute power and speed! The spirit of Word Salad and W.T.Y.D. relives! Your ears ache from the ultimate metal explosion and you pray for mercy as shockwaves of pure thrash pound inside your head. Not yet my friend. First you must go Back to The Palace. All hell breaks loose as Waters and Co. remind us of what they used to play and hopefully will keep playing. Some will say that it is only a copy of The Fun Palace. Well, the basic riff reminds of it but basically I would prefer to consider it as the continuity of Fun Palace, both musically and lyrically.

Bearing in mind that these are the first two songs of the album, can you think of a better way to do so? Yes, Annihilator is back. They have not forgotten how to play heavy or how to play metal. No doubt about it. And the best is yet to come.

Like every other thrash metal veteran, Annihilator sought a return to form after a near decade of inconsistency that cost them a good deal of their fanbase (That and poor management...). Guitarist Jeff Waters proceeded to abandon his vocal duties, rehired "Alice in Hell" vocalist Randy Rampage and original drummer Randy Hartmann, and began to write songs in the vein of (and sometimes making reference to) the band's classic era. Fortunately, Waters had the riffs and songwriting skills to back up his ambitions...

In terms of music and style, it's pretty safe to say that this is one of the fastest, heaviest, and darkest Annihilator albums to date. Most of the songs on here go at an intense speed and showcase a direct approach. There is also less variety than most other Annihilator album and successfully leaves little room for the experimentation that only made fans wonder what the band was thinking on past efforts. Of course there are slight exceptions in the near-ballad styles of "Punctured," the bass heavy title track, the two melodic instrumentals ("Schizos (Are Never Alone) (Part III)" and "Mending"), and the complex mindfuck known as "Double Dare."

There is also a present air of darkness that seems to pick up where the more controversial "Remains" left off. While most Annihilator albums seem to be pre-occupied with themes of war, mental illness, or whatever else enters Waters' mind, there's something about this album's lyrics that make the themes more cryptic and personal. Maybe it has something to do with the production. Whatever it is, it's most evident on tracks such as "Loving the Sinner," which Waters claimed was not about his ex wife...

Unfortuntely, I think this album may also be the root of Annihilator's more desperate sounds and themes. In addition to the old school sound, there are so many throwbacks to the band's first two albums that it really makes evolution seem like a good idea. I know Megadeth wrote a sequel to "Hangar 18" with the "Return to Hangar" and I know Metallica wrote two sequels to "The Unforgiven," but having two sequels on the same album probably wasn't the best idea. On the bright side, I'm pretty sure "Schizos (Are Never Alone) (Part III)" is a sequel in name only...

All in all, this is a pretty solid comeback in spite of its desperate moments and easily makes the band's Top 5. Of course, it merely hints at the greatness that would soon come with the arrival of Joe Comeau...


Pros:
1) Less experimentation leads to a more consistent overall album
2) Solid songwriting and an energetic band performance
3) An interestingly dark atmosphere

Cons:
1) It's obvious that the band was desperately trying to make this as old school as possible
2) Rampage's vocals are as challenging to get into as ever
3) There are a few odd tracks along the way

My Current Favorites:
"Bloodbath," "Punctured," "Schizos (Are Never Alone) (Part III)," "Nothing Left," and "Loving the Sinner"

First impressions are almost always deceiving, particularly when it comes to alleged comeback albums. More often than not, you’ll get the best of what the album has to offer on the first 2 or 3 songs, followed by a mishmash of pure filler and maybe some half-decent experimentation, a happy ending for a finale is optional but occasionally employed as well. That’s basically how this half-hearted, half-thrash release by the classic line-up of Annihilator breaks down. You get some really excellent thrash metal, along with a load of other stuff that either doesn’t measure up or completely falls flat.

The return of Randy Rampage is definitely a plus, as Jeff Waters was definitely not getting the job done behind the microphone. He sounds about as weathered as he looks, although he looked a good deal older than the rest of the band back in 1989, and does not have the high notes that he belted out with ease on “Alice In Hell”. His vocal range on here focuses mostly on the gravely thrash growl and remains relatively flat throughout. In fact, the vocal work on here doesn’t really go much beyond what Waters did on “Refresh The Demon”, though Rampage puts a lot more character into the monolithic vocal presentation on here.

Annihilator has never been a straight up thrash band, but compared to what they did on their first two albums, this is not even consistent by progressive thrash standards. There’s too much variation of style, too much trying to be both modern and retro at the same time, and it doesn’t come off as well as it could have if the band had truly tried to 100% emulate their debut. When they get down and thrash it up, Waters finds himself constantly reaching into the same “Raining Blood” well that he pulled that amazing riff on “Human Insecticide” from. Likewise, the groove tracks on here continue the same spirit of halfcocked Pantera worship meets Machine Head nonsense that populated most of album space on the Jeff Waters trilogy that this came directly after.

Things start off amazingly enough with “Bloodbath” as the riffs are agitated and technical enough to make any guitar fret board reach the point of combustion. It’s not quite as catchy and simple in its riff approach as “Human Insecticide”, though it’s pretty clear that was what they were going for on this one. They frontload the song with a few different slower riffs that definitely reach for Slayer’s epic riffing style of the mid-80s, although the production pushes it a little towards a “Seasons In The Abyss” sound. Rampage’s vocal assault is definitely aggressive, but doesn’t quite have the ballsy, “Ride The Lightning” era Hetfield character that his parallel works on “Alice In Hell” did, and instead sounds like a slightly weaker version of Mustaine’s vocal work.

“Back To The Palace” works closer to a power/thrash hybrid that recycles some melodic riff ideas from the well-known “Never, Neverland” opener “The Fun Palace” and mixes it with the same Slayer riffing heard on the previous song on here. It’s an interesting twist on the older version of the song, but it would have been better if they put a couple of songs between this one and the previous one because they use an extremely sounding Slayer riff to accomplish the aggression factor. “Nothing Left” and “Sonic Homocide” take a more straight up approach, invoking some Bay Area influences to complement the Slayer-like tinge that this whole album exhibits, the latter of which goes a little overboard on the vocal distortion but is otherwise a solid listen.

Things get uninspired towards the middle of the album as things try to get groovy and vary away from the thrash sound that worked well on all of the previously mentioned songs. “Loving The Sinner” is mostly a straight up mid-tempo crusher, but has this really lame, almost grungy sounding breakdown with clean vocals that are not pulled off well. “Punctured” and “Criteria For A Black Widow” sound like rejects from Machine Head’s debut album with almost intelligible mutterings out of Rampage that almost sound like he’s imitating Beavis. “Double Dare” sort of straddles between being a Machine Head song and a semi-decent Pantera styled speed metal song, but completely falls apart during that lame, ballad-like interlude section. Parts of each of these songs are solid, but as a whole they either meander into incoherence or get bogged down in hypnotic groove ideas and never fully take off.

Basically, this album is about on par with “Set The World On Fire” in terms of musical quality, although it doesn’t sound a whole lot like it musically. It’s better than their middle era stuff that started in 1994, but it doesn’t come close to the magic that this line-up had back in 1989 when they showed the world that there was more to Canada than progressive rock bands, bacon and caribous. If you want to hear some solid mixture of thrash metal with modern touches, “Carnival Diablos” would be a better place to start, but this is worth your time if you’ve already heard that album.

Originally submitted to (www.metal-observer.com) on October 25, 2008.

This album has the absolute lowest survival time of any CD in my collection. I still have the Shaq Diesel album my friends made me buy on a dare, and I still have Kratornas' Battledemons to torture people. But this album was so mediocre, so bad, and so needless, that I gave it away to a random chick after listening to it probably half a dozen times. And that was the first two days I had it...then it sat in my bedroom, before I brought it to a bar and gave it to that chick.

So what's bad? Basically everything.

"Bloodbath" starts the thing off really well, blowing Annihilator's entire load as well as their whole arsenel of real thrash riffs before the damn thing is becalmed. Even the terrible vocals (kind of a whispered grunt) work on here, and my expectations are kind of high. All the elements combine to make an actual ripper of a thrash song, but then BAM! It's over. And in my opinion, this album is over.

"Punctured" is basically a Silverchair song played by Korn. Simplistic clean riffs, with a mallcore riff puncturing it. The vocals on here are the absolute worst, sounding like a mentally challenged kid. It makes me want to fucking spew. And that's not even as bad as the title track, which is trite, halfthrash with lyrics that read like a chat conversation featured on Dateline's "To Catch a Predator." Anyone who spells "you" as "u" should be kicked in the fucking head.

"Back to the Palace" is "The Fun Palace" with the riffs played a little differently, but nothing meriting a listen. Megadeth did this with "Hanger 18," and the subsequent "Return to Hanger" was total shit, played by a band that could no long achieve the speeds necessary for take off. Here, Annihilator still has the muscle to pull it off, but can't figure out why they fuck they're doing it. Why, really? That's what I want to know. Is it because your old vocalist is on here again, despite the fact that he is fucking terrible?

The rest of the tracks on here have some great solos, but are filled with rotten vocals and weak riffs that go right out the window. It's really disappointing, especially when you realize how good of a guitarist Jeff Waters really is, that the songs are so poorly written.

A friend of mine made a comparison to Boston with Annihilator. Despite styles being different I'd say it's spot on. You get some great ideas with one guitarist running everything and somehow everything loses its balls. There is a lot of potential, but it's sadly inexplicably ruined.

On the instrumental side, "Schizos are Never Alone 3" is not overly bad, and it does contain some decent riffs, but it doesn't make any sense. It's like Jeff took all his scrap book riffs and threw them in one song. "Mending" is a nice little outro, and thankfully announces that this album is over.

Just when you thought Jeff Waters would go on to release something even worse than the industrial influenced Remains album, he recruits original vocalist Randy Rampage and original drummer Ray Hartmann and does just the opposite. Despite some inherent flaws, Criteria for a Black Widow is the spiritual reincarnation of the Alice in Hell/Never Neverland era Annihilator, modernized but recharged.

First off, the things about this album that own, of which there are many. Jeff Waters' writing emphasis is once again focused on metal, for which Annihilator fans can only be grateful. Though some of the riffing sounds recycled (or in the case of "Back to the Palace," is recycled) from older albums (and in the case of "Sonic Homicide," an old, old demo), there's a lot of new ideas present in the riffing, namely the return of some all out fucking thrash and a torrent of some of Waters' best lead work in years. Though there's a fair amount of Never Neverland style melodic and/or acoustic breaks to mix up the mayhem, much of this is pure heaviness and very fast. The distortion still has the lingering scent of modern metal that it acquired a few albums back, but it isn't really a negative factor here. Everything sounds as it should and is masterfully produced.

The return of Randy Rampage is a triumphant one, as his raspy voice perfectly compliments this one. He doesn't sound as good as he did on Alice in Hell, but he manages to make Waters' bland and ridiculous lyrics sound legit. Though the lyrics on this album aren't nearly as bad as on most of the earlier albums, they could still use some work (the actual line from "Bloodbath" is "No one here will miss the stench of your abyss," whatever the fuck that means, but it's certainly not as stupid as "stench of your piss") Jeff Waters does some melodic background vocals from time to time, but they don't sound as shitty as they did on the last few. Ray Hartmann owns here, as his drumming is intricate and spot on throughout. And did I mention that Jeff Waters shreds his ass off all over this thing?

So now for the things that hurt this album. First up, the above mentioned lyrics. Lyrical ineptitude has always held the band back in the quality department, though its not as big a problem if you don't take their lyrics seriously anyway. The second biggest thing is the riff recycling. I can't complain too much, since its still a thrash album that kicks my ass, but it seems like Waters put exercised the bare minimum in creative effort to get this one out. Yeah there's a lot of innovation, but it seems like he just wanted to get another metal release out there to save the Annihilator reputation. "Back to the Palace" is the sequel to "The Fun Palace," a classic tune that didn't need a sequel that pretty much just steals its riffs and modernizes it. "Schizos Pt. 3" is good, but not as nearly as good as pts. 1 & 2 off Alice in Hell. Robert Fripp: Waters is not.

But despite its mediocre lyrics and constant nods back to the older Annihilator albums, I still enjoy the hell out of this. Songs like "Bloodbath," "Sonic Homicide," and "Punctured" just don't get old. This is powerful, albeit modern, Annihilator style thrash metal and that's good enough for me.

Annihilator's formula has gone from "worn thin" to "this band must die". The album is a horrible fucking mess, ranging from poorly played thrash to pretty much mallcore. The vocalist sounds like fucking Beavis, the songwriting is irritating, and the riffs are lifeless. Half the time, they're directly ripping off an old album and doing a shitty job of it - the other time, they're pretending to be a washed-up Pantera clone.

The album kinda starts nicely, with the only song on here that I can stand to listen to repeatedly. That is "Bloodbath", which is pretty formulaic, but hey, it's thrash, and it's well-done for what it is. The lyrics are dumb ("know that you shall miss... the stench of your own piss"), and Beavis sucks at vocals, but the main riff is sufficiently Slayer that the song is good.

Then we go into a steady trip downhill from there... Back to the Palace is basically The Fun Palace riff, played with the notes half wrong, and the highlight is actually the little melodic break around 3:44 - it's VERY sad when a thrash album's highlight is basically the ballad section. The rest of the song isn't bad, but when it's good it is basically the same verse melody as Bloodbath. Boring.

After that, it's all fucking downhill. Punctured is basically mallcore. Also, it features the Great Cornholio on vocals... "Punctured! Punctured! Booiinnngg! TP for my bunghole! Fire! Fire!" By the time this is half over (THREE agonising minutes), you never EVER want to hear the word "Punctured" EVER again, and the next person that says it is gonna get an ass beating. This sounds like a Moderntallica song meets Linkin Park.

Then the next track... fucken almighty, you'd think that something with a title like "Criteria for a Black Widow" would be one of the dregs of the album, not the goddamn TITLE TRACK. What a stupid fucking title. The song is completely without value - insipid lyrics and a vocal delivery that makes Korn sound masterful.

Schizos 3 is sorta like Schizos 1 and 2: Jeff Waters's "all the riffs I've got lying around". There's a few good ones in there, but the whole thing is one fine mess, and the best riff is a ripoff of Toxik's Count your Blessings. "Nothing Left" has nothing to do with Agent Steel, "Loving the Sinner" is mediocre whiffle-ball thrash similar to what Annie has been spoonfeeding us with the last few years. Same with Double Dare, which is even more repetitive and stupid.

What a fucking WASTE. "Sonic Homicide" would be cool, except for the vocals, which are ... sonic homicide. Heh. Imagine Beavis through a megaphone. Really. Fucking. Lame. Sorta like the vox on God Hates Us All. What the fuck, man. Then, the last song is some shitty ballad, except for at the VERY end.

Now, if there were a part of the album that you NEVER wanted to hear again, what would it be? That's right... the asinine verses of Criteria, with that fucking irritating vocal delivery. Well, guess what's back. Except without any instruments. THAT is the hidden bonus track. It's like buying a CD, and getting a free ass-rape to go with it.

Kids, Annihilator basically sucks. This album is no exception.

Life has become harder and harder to live. The grim visage of life has even peared it's wretched self in the music we have all come to know and love. A prime example would be this latest release from "Annihilator".

Just by looking at the titles of Criteria For A Black Widow alone, you can tell that this albm is definately one of the darkest, most intense thrash albums ever recorded by "Annihilator". With such tracks as 'Bloodbath' and 'Sonic Homicide', anger and betrayal seem to be the biggest things on the album. And the music definately holds that same element.

Right from the start you are jolted into a world of pain, hatred and misery with intensely dark and extreme guitar riffs and drums, as well as lyrics. And the fact that all but one member of the original line-up has returned can assure you an amazing album, and that simple promise holds up with amazing music and vocal work.

Also notable about the release is that it is the most explicit "Annihilator" album ever as well, especially with the title track 'Criteria For A Black Widow', which is pretty much about sex, but in rather a very vulgar way.

But don't let that stop you from picking the album up for a listen. While most of their material is usually anger driven or very down to earth, the album is seriously dark and insane, and from start to finish you'll be wishing you left the lights on as you journey through a world of torment, only to end with a relaxing instrumental that indicates exactly what is done when all your anger is unleashed, 'Mending'.

The album is a trip deep inside of the world and mind of Jeff Waters, and all the torment that he had suffered over the years. Many of the lyrics in the album are very relatable to every day situations, which also can make the album an excellent anger management source. So if you have yet to check this one out, don't pass it by because of the grim visage that it holds. It is an excellent audio attack that no one should pass up for any reason.

Like many other acts Annihilator attempted to jump-start their career by throwing together their best selling (though their best was never that good commercially) line-up and releasing an album that is promised to bring back the 1980's glory of the band. Sadly for Mr. Waters, neither of these things was to happen with this release.

Randy Rampage (oooh, aaah) is back in the saddle with his strange thrash-vocal styles (looking quite old to boot). This, creates some fun, as the man most certainly adds a sense of personality to the band that is often lacking on Annihilator releases. The music he is given to yarble over is also a step up from the previous 1990's releases for the band, though not exactly amazing material. Jeff Waters knows how to shred, and he composes an amazing riff here and there but overall the mood is one of outdated cheeseball thrash metal that is meant to be non-offensive and friendly for "the kids". Thankfully...many of these problems would be corrected on the later "Carnival Diablos".

Annihilator also need someone to write lyrics for them. With unwitty titles such as "Double Dare" coupled with poor lyrical works such as "Loving the Sinner" and "Nothing Left" it seems as if the band is trying to be witty while they lack minds to be witty with.

This record is not terrible, nor is it very good. Much like the newest Exodus ("Tempo of the Damned") it's a well produced and well played effort that will serve as junk food upon the first few listens but most likely you will not be coming to the record year after year. I admire Jeff Waters drive to keep his band going and to not give up the metal banner...I just wish he had more natural songwriting gifts to work with to bolster his incredible guitar skills.