Schizo Deluxe

With a silly intro urging us to 'Unleash the Beast' and an opening track called "Maximum Satan", you really have to kick some ass or crank up the laughs to get me hooked, and Schizo Deluxe fails to do either of them. This is the second Annihilator full-length of the Dave Padden era, and expectations were quite low after All For You, and thought it does turn up the dials in terms of producing a then-modern, generic thrash metal record with the correct DNA, it's not really a huge leap in quality forward over its predecessor. Again, you have the meathead opener, a little more intense than off the last album, but just not offering the sorts of riffs or structure that we enjoyed on the first two. "Drive" and "Warbird" are pretty much pure Metallica worship, Master of Puppets era, and while they aren't all that bad, they once again gives me the impression that Padden just sort of grabs his style from a bunch of other popular forerunners of the metal music scene and never can really develop a personality of his own.

The production is about the same as on the prior album, but the material is denser and faster so it does come off slightly more unhinged and therefore superior, and automatically more entertaining just because the sheer velocity will hold your attention better. The drummer here, Tony Chappelle, is given more to do than Mike Mangini on All For You, and so he metes out a muscular if mechanistic performance which only comes up slacking if you're expecting any surprises. Jeff Waters is obviously still an amazing guitarist, as tracks like "Invite It" amply exhibit, and the song quality is once again commensurate with how crazy and technical his riffing becomes. Tunes like "Maximum Satan" and "Like Father, Like Gun" just can't hang with the blazing speed of some of their neighbors, and in the case of the latter you have to wade through a dumb big mid-paced thrash riff and groove before you even get to a half-decent melodic chorus which reminds me of "Steppin' Stone" by the Monkees.

It's almost like Annihilator didn't get the memo that the groove/thrash devolution of the 90s was no longer really cool, and so Schizo Deluxe seems more for fans of Machine Head, Pantera and later Metallica and not so much for those seeking a restoration to the excellence of Alice in Hell. It's far from the Canadians' worst offering, but it just seems like a soulless and unnecessary modern evolution of the sound that I can file away with so many other contemporary thrash albums from the 'Oughts that understood the actual construction, but lack the personality of all the best classic thrash albums. Yes, there are at least a dozen great guitar lines here, almost all the good stuff is just Waters himself, but overall it doesn't leave much of an impression for better or worse, just sorts of sits there in the middle of a turbulent catalog, listing to the right and left as we wait to hear what the storm will bring next.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

After the immense letdown that was 2004's "All for You", and the backlash it would ignite from critics and old school fans alike, it only makes sense for Annihilator's following installment in their lengthy discography to be a much more aggressive, straight-to-the-point affair, with less unfocused meandering and radio-friendly elements in it. However, with all the "talents" displayed by abysmal vocalist Dave Padden, Jeff couldn't fully let go of his newfound blockheaded groovecore/emo-pop tendencies - and the result of this compromise would be 2005's "Schizo Deluxe". I've always enjoyed this record to a certain degree, finding in it some of the more tolerable and interesting tunes from the wretched Padden era, but it's still quite a mess really. The best way to describe "Schizo Deluxe" would be as a pretty cool modern metal album sandwiched between a rather weak starting and a godfuckingawful ending.

So, let's first get the downright bad stuff out of the way. Opener "Maximum Satan" is a boring, plodding, monotonous groove number with more of Padden's badly harmonized clean vocals attempting to sound somewhat "intimidating" and melodic at the same time; of course it all fails, degenerating into the most stale, braindead form of metalcore that was starting to spread in the mainstream around those years. "Drive" is also pretty fucking lame in spite of its speed and relentlessness, being just a lazy rehash of riffs from "King of the Kill" and the "Ultra-Motion" chorus with a few minor variations (recycling older riffs would become more and more of a habit for Jeff in the following years) - and Dave's vocals are still quite laughable, even though the song's central bridge (the one with the "I'll turn this battle into war" verses) is honestly quite cool. However, the worst offender by far is closing track "Something Witchy", which is just pure unadulterated early-2000's Hot Topic aggro-rock: immensely braindead, single-note stop-'n'-go verses with Dave's pathetic wannabe-toughguy screams, and a melodic, kinda tongue-in-cheek chorus that sounds as if it was lifted straight from some Disney Channel boyband. Just as awful as anything from "All for You", really.

The album starts picking up only with its third track, and believe it or not, there's quite some interesting stuff on here, albeit still marred by Padden's horrid performance and his emo choruses occasionally popping in where they don't belong. The best example of the album's squashed potential is "Pride", most likely my favorite track on here: a fast, furious thrasher with absolutely mind-blowing riffage (fast-picked in classic Slayer style, yet tastefully melodic at the same time) and some truly fantastic, badass licks during its middle section; however, the chorus truly is something else - sounding just like it was lifted from a puerile, up-beat emo/pop-punk radio song, and I remember not being able to enjoy this track for a long time only because of that, until I became better acquainted with its brilliant guitar work. Other personal favorites of mine include speed metal riff monster "Invite It" - whose chorus, this time around, I've always found to be quite fun and quirky, and whose guitar work is just as brilliant and creative as "Pride"'s. Lots of groove numbers are still featured, but this time around, there seems to be more inspiration on Jeff's part: the verses of "Plasma Zombies", for instance, are pretty solid (not too different from the usual groove metal stuff you could find on 90's/early-2000's Annihilator records), and prepare the way for the song to explode into a raging thrasher in the chorus (if only Dave's near-robotic vocals could be removed from the equation...). I'm also very fond of "Warbird" and "Like Father Like Gun": very simple groovers, yet the riffing bears some kind of haunting, almost hypnotic quality to it that makes it stick in your brain, and even the choruses sound pretty cool to be honest. Also, Jeff handles vocal duties on the sleazy upbeat rock number "Too Far Gone", resulting in a fairly catchy tune that goes unharmed by Padden's vocal antics.

This is all pretty cool and fairly inspired stuff: the raging speed/thrash metal numbers are of course my favorites, but everything in the album's middle section as a whole turns out to be a surprisingly fun, enjoyable listen. However, there's a track that is often overlooked or even scorned by fans, and needs some re-evaluation in my opinion: I'm talking about "Clare" - believe it or not, Annihilator's one and only successful attempt at radio-rock during the Padden era. I love how it blends Annihilator's trademark "schizo" vibes (in the form of sinister arpeggios and half-whispered, kinda creepy verses) with a catchy alt-rock chorus without these two elements coming at odds with each other, resulting in a rather unsettling albeit still light-sounding, radio-friendly tune. It's a very interesting experiment that sounds much more in line with Jeff's usual talent when it comes to fool around with different musical influences, compared to the jumbled mess that was "All for You". Shame only for the stupid tough-guy metalcore chugging breakdown in the middle (Jeff seemed to be way too enamored with this kind of low-effort stuff during this era of the band), but the rest of the song is thoroughly listenable and enjoyable: it's radio-friendly without sounding whiny or creatively bankrupt.

All in all, "Schizo Deluxe" is a lot of fun, despite a rather bumpy start and a disastrous ending. I still wish I could erase Padden's vocal tracks from existence (honestly, if there was a Padden-era album that needed a re-recording with a different vocalist, that would be this album, not the totally hopeless cashgrab going by the name of "Metal") - but all in all, this is mostly good stuff with a rather quirky, tongue-in-cheek quality to it at many points. If it wasn't for those three filler tracks dragging the record down, this would probably be the best album from the Padden era, but that place belongs instead to 2010's "Annihilator" (a much more consistent record all around, if not always super-memorable). I still can't recommend "Schizo Deluxe" to old school Annihilator fans though: if you think the band shat the bed after their first few records, this is definitely not the album I would pick in order to change your mind ("Criteria" or the Comeau-era stuff would rather do the job). However, if you're not entirely averse to groove metal (at least, the brand of groove Jeff used to play back in the 90's) and can stomach a few lame tracks and ill-fitting choruses, there might be some cool surprises here for you to find.

Oh, and this album also features "Weapon X" as bonus track, correcting the misdeed of it being left out from "All for You". That's great too.

Schizo Deluxe came out during an era of kinda shitty releases from Annihilator, nestled between two of their all-time worst albums, but does that mean that this one is necessarily shit? No! I am a firm defender of this album, it's likely my favorite release they did with Dave Padden, despite its obvious flaws. Yes, this is an album which partially consists of so-so groove metal, and hell, there's even a few shitty alt metal moments here and there on it as well, but between those moments, there lies some truly great thrash to be heard.

This album, like I said, focuses partially on their brand of adequate groove metal some of the time. I don't think it's necessarily controversial of me to say that Waters was never particularly great at making groove metal, but on here it's certainly decent and even good at times, such as on the first track, Maximum Satan. It starts off with a few clips of TV shows with growling demon noises, which I really think are quite sinister and effective in establishing a menacing vibe. The actual music of this track is quite potent and also mid-paced, but so was Alison Hell for much of its own runtime, so it's not quite so unusual to hear stuff like this from Annihilator. To touch more on the groove metal, there are a couple tracks, such as Like Father Like Gun, which feature bluesy Pantera and 00's Exodus type riffs, and on a whole they're pretty good despite cheesey lyricism.

The other style they focus on here though, is that good ol' speedy tech-thrash, baby! Yes, after the totally shitty alt metal disaster known as All For You, they return to fast and fun riffs yet again. This time, the music tends to channel their most classic works, hybridizing Never, Neverland-esque changes with Waking The Fury-esque vigor. The end result doesn't always truly slay, but it is far more enjoyable than the albums directly before and directly after this one. Cuts such as Plasma Zombies, Drive, and closer Weapon X, (which is unfortunately a "bonus track" on some releases [baffling, since Something Witchy is a bad note to end on]), showcase this aspect the most. Tracks like these, musically at least, are very fun, enjoyable, and well.. pretty damn great actually! I think talking about how Jeff is a guitar wizard has kinda been done to death, so I won't go into too much detail, but I'll just say he can really play the shit out of super fast, fun, syncopated speed metal when he decides to.

Lyrically, I'll admit, is where this album falters. I praised Plasma Zombies earlier for its good music, but its words seem to exhibit, shall we say, boomer paranoia about videogames. The link between violent video games and mass shootings/violence has been disproven over and over, and you'd think Waters, as a guy so interested in schizophrenia and other mental issues, would be aware of that. But sadly, these lyrics are pretty contrived and reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of the subject. I'll be fair and say that maybe his kids were driving him crazy with that stuff around this time. He did become a father in the 90s, during the genesis of first person shooters, and thoughts like these are not unheard of from parents concerned about their teenage children, but they're a bit disappointing nonetheless. Another aspect I'll mention is the tough guy stuff. Usually, lyrics of this sort from Annihilator fall flat, but I must again give credit where credit is due and admit that this album's macho lyrics are actually not so bad, they're just a little weak when compared with songs such as Drive and Maximum Satan. That being said, Weapon X and Pride, (which both lean macho), are among this album's greatest cuts.

Annihilator is the very definition of a hit-or-miss band. While there are a few shitty moments on here, I'd count Schizo Deluxe as a hit in my book. The band juxtaposes good enough groove metal with better, more classic sounding technical speed/thrash parts, so when it picks up and gets fun and speedy, it recaptures much of the greatness of releases like Alice in Hell and Never, Neverland. Even Dave Padden, who is by no means the best vocalist they've ever had, is pretty good on here as well, unleashing some good screams and decent enough singing. The lyrics are, as usual, here and there on the quality spectrum, but mostly good I'd reckon. It's a shame people were so blinded by the shittiness of All For You and Metal to acknowledge that Schizo Deluxe is actually a very fun and good album. I can really see why it's one of Waters's favorite creations, since it's one of the few times he managed to pull off every musical style he tried out. This enjoyable slice of groove/tech thrash is thoroughly underrated in my opinion, and deserves a fair reappraisal.

In a career full of twists, turns, oddities, and confounding about-faces, Schizo Deluxe (what a terrible title by the way) somehow manages to stand out as perhaps the biggest oddity of them all. And why is that, you ask? Well, because, in spite of the fact that this album is bookended by the two absolute worst Annihilator albums, and is in general sat right in the middle of their creative nadir, Schizo Deluxe is not only shockingly competent but even, dare I say it, quite good on its own merits.

Now, this isn't because it's some radical return to pure thrash after more than a decade away - no, this is another collection of midpaced groovers for the most part, but it is largely very well executed, despite the occasional hiccup. This album is largely preoccupied with lumbering, midtempo riffs, with occasional interjections of manic, double-bass driven intensity, but you also have stabs at more ominous moments (the last two tracks) and melodic hooks delivered by Dave Padden in a fair few of the songs. However, unlike lots of Annihilator records, Schizo Deluxe remains fairly focused on this core formula without any real insane turns into the left field. Even then, though, one of the core issues with mid-era Annihilator is that whilst groove metal isn't, I'd argue, a style which is inherently terrible on its own, the band were never very good at pulling it off.

But that actually changes here, though. Rather than the directionless, turgid tracks which polluted the worst of this era, the riffs here rumble forwards with steely precision and attack with surprising levels of viciousness. A big reason why this is the case is that this has to be one of the best production jobs on an Annihilator album. The guitars sound crystal-clear and, far more importantly, razor-sharp, which really accentuates the riffs here. On top of this, the drums occupy a nice prominent place in the mix and both the snare and kick drums absolutely pummel the listener for the entire duration, preventing the album from ever getting stuck in middle gear for too long, as previous Annihilator records have done. Whilst I'm talking about the drums, I'll give Tony Chappelle his due here (although, as an aside, I'm fairly sure the guy doesn't actually exist - try finding any trace of him on the internet beyond a credit on this album). Even in the album's grooviest moments, like "Like Father, Like Gun," Chappelle pushes things forwards with constant, thunderous double bass work and a general addiction to playing as fast as any given song allows.

Since I'm handing out praise to the members here (and I'm skipping over Waters because anyone with even a passing interest in Annihilator knows that the guy is a monster guitarist so it seems kinda redundant), it's worth noting that this is one of Dave Padden's best showings as Annihilator vocalist here. He sounds mostly pretty decent when the songs require an aggressive bark but really comes into his own when they call for a more melodic approach; "Pride," for example, is elevated by the ease with which Padden delivers that big, melodic chorus, and he delivers a similarly compelling performance on "Maximum Satan" (one of the most underrated songs in the whole Annihilator catalogue for me). Having said that, as good a turn Padden delivered here with the cleans, he still sounds fucking awful when he has to do that full-on screaming style which was all too prominent on parts of All for You; "Something Witchy" (which is a horrible closer that threatens to squander the goodwill built up on the rest of the album) highlights the difference in quality between the two styles pretty well.

All that said, it's not all sunshine and roses. "Drive," the second track, again threatens to squander a promising opening salvo of "Maximum Satan" by blatantly and egregiously repurposing the main riff in "King of the Kill," and the "I'm alright, I'm okay" refrain in the chorus reminds me too strongly of the fucking Bee Gees - an intentional homage maybe (who knows with Jeff Waters?), but one I sure as hell do not want on a thrash record. "Plasma Zombies," in addition to being very mediocre musically, is made worse by the preachy lyrics about how good ol' video games are gonna turn our kids into monsters, and "Invite It" is made into a chore by the attempted rapid-fire vocal delivery in the chorus and Dave Padden doing that forced goofy affectation shit because, hey, it worked for Annihilator on that part of that one song back in 1993. If you've subjected yourself to All for You, you'll know what I mean because it's the exact same shit he pulls on "Demon Dance" and it fails just as hard then too.

All in all, though, I reckon Schizo Deluxe is about as good as it was ever likely to get for this incarnation of the band. Feast may be the flawed but definite peak of the Padden era, but this here did about as good a job with the modern, groove-based sound the band adopted than anything else. Yes, there are some extremely obvious flaws in some of the songs and some facets of the album, but when all is said and done Schizo Deluxe is a pretty damn solid and enjoyable record which includes many of the best songs recorded with Padden at the helm. Unlike its predecessor, this one is absolutely worth a spin if you're looking for an alternative to the band's usual thrash fare.

After the diversified alternative metal output All for You that received a lot of negative criticism, Annihilator takes a step back on Schizo Deluxe and opts for a more traditional groove metal release in the key of Waking the Fury.

This album offers numerous chugging riffs, dry and fast drum passages, unspectacular bass lines and angrily shouted vocals. From time to time, the clinical sound is interrupted with modern metralcore experiments or psychedelic melodic breaks that are so charismatic for Annihilator's early years and especially for the songs about mental diseases. However, the combination of fast-paced groove metal soundscapes and melodic breaks often sounds incoherent as in the odd ''Plasma Zombies''.

It doesn't help that Jeff Waters starts to copy himself instead of trying out something new as on the last output. The pitiless and fast ''Drive'' is a potent track but the opening riff is an obvious variation of the main riff of ''King of the Kill'' without reaching the groovy catchiness of the original. ''Invite It'' comes around with incoherent changes in style meandering between weird slightly shouted spoken-word efforts, low clean perfromances and regular melodic clean vocals but all those variations can't hide the fact that numerous parts of the song directly rip off ''Brain Dance''. ''Pride'' has a similar issue since it tries to fit numerous different songwriting approaches and ideas into five minutes but ends up sounding all over the place while the main riff that heavily borrows from ''Ultra Motion'' painfully tries to keep the song together.

However, there are still a few potent tracks on this output. The explosive opener ''Maximum Satan'' kicks the record off with a bang. The gloomy, hypnotizing and melodic ''Clare'' might go back to several Annihilator records lyrically but the more streamlined alternative metal musicianship in the key of Drowning Pool and the likes is at the pulse of time and could have gotten the band some radio airplay if this song had been one or two minutes shorter. The closing ''Something Witchy'' might once again be too experimental for its own good but includes Dave Padden's most diversified and passionate vocal performance on the record and never gets boring in its surprisingly coherent oddness that goes back to efforts like ''Brain Dance''.

In the end, Schizo Deluxe is a quite average Annihilator record. It's neither among the band's greatest releases nor among its most disappointing outputs. The album won't grow on you either and might actually get more redundant as time goes by. This release is only interesting for completionists and truly faithful fans. Anyone else might only consider picking this record up for a fairly reduced price but it certainly isn't worth its full price as it offers too much filler material. I would suggest you to skip this effort if you are a new or occasional fan.

I'm still waiting for the punchline on this one. It's honestly a bit depressing, because on a purely instrumental level, Schizo Deluxe is decent by Annihilator standards. It lacks some of the scattershot variety that made albums like Set the World on Fire and Carnival Diablos more enjoyable, but at the same time it manages to emphasize its strengths. The problem is Padden, who manages to atom-bomb nearly every song here in some way or another. How bad is it? Well, Padden is far worse than Waters' performance on Refresh the Demon. I'll wait for you to comprehend how that is even possible...

It doesn't take long for "Maximum Satan" to neatly lay out all of the flaws of Schizo Deluxe for easy evaluation. Over what is honestly a solid, rocking groover of a riff, we have Padden atonally shouting his way through a lyrically inept performance. For some reason his harsh tone is layered with a cleaner bellow, and the result is pretty much as bad as it sounds. His primary bark doesn't necessarily sound akin to a parody like Waters' does, but it reeks of incompetency all the same. Padden also tries tossing some novelty voices the listener's way, like on "Something Witchy," but "Brain Dance" it certainly is not. Randall had the novelty voices down on Set the World on Fire, but it is just not working for Padden here.

From soup to nuts, Schizo Deluxe spans a large swath of misery and disappointment. Disappointment regarding modern Annihilator? It's possible, especially with completely vapid interchangeable numbers like "Drive," "Invite It," and especially the atrocious stab at video gaming in "Plasma Zombies." The anti-violence message might have some punch if it was Waters delivering the narrative, but hearing it from someone roughly my age in Padden completely neuters the relevancy. Not only that, Waters' formula is really starting to stagnate by this point. We've been hearing the same riffs and patterns since King of the Kill, can't we do something different? Schizo Deluxe can be a frustrating listen, as it constantly implodes in upon itself just when it seems like it might go somewhere. Sometimes Waters sounds like he is losing his mind as he tries to upstage himself cumulatively, again and again. Listen to second half of "Drive," what is that? I certainly can't call it music. Also, the sound clips that open nearly every track get really old, really fast. Stop that shit.

There are exactly two good songs, even if they don't have much trouble standing out from the stagnated pack. "Pride" embodies a solid, less vitriolic second coming of "Ultra-Motion," and kicks a decent amount of ass thanks to Waters' electrified picking hand. "Like Father, Like Gun" stumbles around at first, but has a good chorus with some passable cleans from Padden. While Annihilator clearly took emulation to a new level when the malleable Comeau was at the helm, they still try some of that here. I can't help but feel like I am one of the few noticing this, but listen to the way the chorus riff meshes with the vocals on "Like Father, Like Gun" and especially the lion's share of "Clare." That is CKY! Not a bad band at all, but totally out of left field as far as Annihilator is concerned.

While Waters can always be relied on for some really swarming, invasive solos and leadwork, the biggest single improvement here as far as the performances are concerned has to be the inclusion of Chappelle on the drums. He is definitely the best technician on the kit Annihilator has boasted amongst their ranks since Mangini departed over a decade prior. Shame he didn't stick around, because there was potential here. In hindsight, the situation wasn't completely hopeless, as Padden has improved exponentially in the decade since Schizo Deluxe, so you have to give him some credit in that regard. Other than the cool album cover (which appears to be a quasi-homage to King of the Kill), drop this album like a hot potato.

Dave Padden's Annihilator has been an interesting animal, certainly hit and miss. All For You and Metal were just ok efforts, but this album and the self-titled were kickass. Granted, this album has some pretty odd song ideas sometimes, but overall it's a great listen.

This is an interesting mix of music. For the most part, it's pretty intense and doesn't let up. The album also seems like a mix of old and new Annihilator sounds, however unlike All For You it comes together quite beautifully.

The production on this album is pretty good. It's well-mixed and clear, yet still has a raw, powerful sound to it. I honestly wish Jeff did whatever he did on this album with some of the other newer Annihilator albums because it sounds fucking awesome. The songs are all great with the exception of Clare, and Jeff is at the top of his game. The riffs on most of the songs, both the fast and mid-tempo songs, absolutely slay.

Dave Padden has also greatly improved over the previous effort. He sounds pretty good on most of the songs and has some pretty ridiculous moments on the album (the last scream on Warbird and the chorus on Invite It are good examples).

Some of the songs are a bit off, though. This is an album you have to listen to a few times in order to appreciate. The first time I listened to this album, to be honest, I was a bit taken back, but it has grown on me since. Give it a listen and you'll enjoy this if you like anything else this band has done.

In my honest opinion, there are not enough great things that can be said for Jeff Waters and his baby, Annihilator. In an age where thrash metal was second only to hair metal in terms of popularity of heavy music, Annihilator were a welcome addition (and stand-out) to a scene that quickly becoming over-saturated with less-talented bands as the major labels were all trying to recapture the market power of bands like Metallica, Anthrax, and Slayer.

What set Annihilator apart from their peers was a very strong sense of technique and melody, not to mention a guiding light in one Jeff Waters, a Flying V-wielding shredmeister who was always at the center of the bands songwriting and guitar histrionics. The new album sees the band once again remaining a virtual Waters solo effort, with the exception of what seems to be a session drummer (in the more-than-adequate Tony Chappelle), and lead vocals handled by a returning Dave Padden. This reviewer personally feels that “Never, Neverland,” is the be-all, end-all Annihilator effort and that it will never be topped. That aside, this is easily the closest that Jeff Waters has come to doing just that. The music is fucking ridiculously heavy.

“Drive” is a faster song more reminiscent of the ‘Annihilator sound,’ although it’s even a bit meeker than songs coming later in the album. “Plasma Zombies” is a truly awesome ode to violent videogames, and “Warbird,” although sounding a bit more like newer Exodus than Annihilator, is an awesome slow thrasher that’s fit for headbanging. “Too Far Gone” is the only lead vocal provided by Mr. Waters, and it’s a cool pit song in it’s own right. A treat for those that buy the version of this disc with bonus tracks, is the song “Weapon X, which is an awesome thrasher that for whatever reason was rejected from the final version of “All For You.” The real winner here though, is “Invite It.” It is a 100% thrashing tune with catchy lyrics and even a little bit of silliness in latter choruses provided by Mr. Dave Padden, who has this really amazing voice that sounds a bit like actor Tim Curry (Rocky Horror Picture Show, McHale’s Navy, Clue: The Movie, Congo, etc.). Other times (like the bridge of “Invite It”), he has a really cool, mellower tone that could easily be top 40, but it works wonders here on more melodic passages.

I’m starting to think that Jeff Waters CAN’T put out a bad CD...

Annihilator’s Schizo Deluxe is a powerful album and certainly of very high quality. Schizo Deluxe mixes Annihilator’s early technical thrash metal style with their more modern groove metal sound. Now I am not usually that fond of groove metal but on Schizo Deluxe it is of such high quality that I can’t help but love each and ever song. The average song length is just under 5 minutes each not unusual for Annihilator.

The songs are mixed between up-tempo tech thrash and mid-tempo groovy assaults and even some melodic aspects like on Clare. Just listen to the technical leads on songs like Drive and Invite It they are breath taking. Even the faster songs have some groovy riffs and make Pantera look like a bunch of sissies. Power chords are used sparingly for the amount of groove metal presence on Schizo Deluxe. Atmosphere is only present on songs like Clare and the semi-melodic parts of Maximum Satan and Plasma Zombies. The production really shines on Schizo Deluxe mixing each instrument clearly in the mix but at the same time focusing on Jeff Waters excellent lead guitar work.

Ever band member is at the top of his game and certainly adds high quality performances to each song. Jeff Water’s peppers each song with his traditional crazy technical guitar leads, solos and equally pummeling riffs. His bass work is pretty fricking heavy and adds some real heavy low end punch to every song. Dave Padden uses a mainly mid-range groove metal oriented voice but also alternates between his melodic singing, shouts, and screams. Listen to his quite long scream at the end of Warbird it’s priceless; he is definitely an underrated vocalist. Tony Chappelle drumming is very solid and uses his double kick bass, fills very effectively, and shifts between quite a few different beats on each song.

Only a few weaknesses are present on Schizo Deluxe and they don’t affect it that much. First off the last half isn’t as powerful or entertaining and seems to lag a bit. Clare is a weird song and doesn’t fit that well on this album considering it is by far the most melodic song on the album. Finally Something Witchy has a very weird ending with a lot of weird squirrel like voices and synthesized vocals ending the album very unusually.

Schizo Deluxe is a mainly underrated album and certainly be hailed as a very high quality album and one of Annihilator’s best release thus far. Best songs are Maximum Satan, Drive, Plasma Zombies, Invite It, and Pride. I highly recommend this release to fans of technical thrash metal, groove metal, and any fan of the almighty Annihilator.

-2 points second half is a bit weaker and less powerful
-2 points Clare doesn’t fit well on Schizo Deluxe considering its far more melodic nature
-2 points Something Witchy’s extremely weird ending

Annihilator has historically proven to be its own worst enemy, as every time they’ve gotten a good idea going, they seem to jam on the brakes and reassess what is going on around them before punching the gas again. After releasing two certifiable thrash powerhouses, Jeff Waters looks at the groove craze going on and decides its time to make some changes, paving the way for the disastrous “Remains” debacle. Later on after recovering a bit with “Criteria For A Black Widow” and doing almost the exact same thing as the first two albums, but with a more modern sounding set of speed metal albums in “Carnival Diablos” and “Waking The Fury”, metalcore became the thing to sound like so once again our favorite metal weathervane jumped ship and gave us the horrid “All For You”.

The question is where does that leave this latest offering “Schizo Deluxe”. The answer is actually something along the same lines as “Criteria For A Black Widow” in terms of quality, but with a stronger riff assault and a weaker vocal delivery, and stylistically a bit closer to “Carnival Diablos“. There’s a little bit of weirdness lifted from “Set The World On Fire” smattered here and there, but basically this album amounts to Waters responding to a backlash to the last album by piling on as many technical riffs as he can throw together. The results are a mixed bag, depending on how strongly Dave Padden’s voice manages to pull everything else down, but this is basically the best of the three albums that said metalcore oriented vocalist has been present on.

There are a good number of solid speed/thrash crushers on here that ride that cliché mid tempo double bass rumble in the mode heard on Judas Priest’s “Jugulator”. “Maximum Satan” and “Like Father, Like Gun” follow this model quite effectively, with a little bit more of a consonant melodic contour than what you’d get out of Priest during that era. Padden’s vocals manage to remain strong by sticking to a semi-dirty, albeit bellowing Thrash character and mostly avoiding those decrepit hard core screams that sound like a goat choking on a dildo-spaded piece of barbed wire. But the real meat and potatoes comes blazing out with “Plasma Zombies”, which goes back to that crazed, riff happy mayhem that was heard on “Alice In Hell”. It’s a little bit more technical than classics such as “Human Insecticide” and “Ligeia”, but vocally not quite as catchy and hard hitting.

For the most part, things stay relatively strong for the first 4/5ths of the album, barring the occasional fit of vocal ridiculousness out of Padden like that really annoying 15 second whiny shout at the end of “Warbird”. But by the end Jeff feels the need to appease some of the newer fans of the band who ate up “All For You” and threw in two crappy Trivium inspired songs at the end. “Clare” would be fairly decent if it wasn’t for that really comical sounding chorus and those failure at tough guy shouting moments in between. “Something Witchy” is an all out failure, essentially taking all of the worst elements of “All For You” together into one lyrically idiotic shout fest that comes close to hitting overt “Far Beyond Driven” levels of redundant groove plodding in the riff department.

As a whole, this is fairly good by recent thrash standards, but this doesn’t really stack up to certified classics like “Alice In Hell” or solid later efforts such as “Waking The Fury”. If you own one album by this band with Dave Padden on vocals, this would be the one to get. It has a little bit of a Killswitch Engage feel to it a lot of the time, so I think that people who go for that vocal approach will like this. Otherwise, I’d think twice before blowing more than $10 on this.

Originally submitted to (www.metal-observer.com) on May 12, 2009.

Annihilator, despite all the talent that Jeff Waters encompasses, has a lot of highs and lows in their career. It’s up, down, up, down so many times that either I’m severely disappointed with a release or completely awestruck. Fortunately, Schizo Deluxe is a definite high point for the band.

Since the establishment of vocalist John Padden it seems as though the band just progressively gets stronger and thrashier. Despite the controversy of the previous album (All For You), Annihilator doesn’t miss a beat – and nails everything that the last album was heading towards. Jeff Waters has really set the bar once again for his own talents and those of the other band members.

Basically and the easiest way to generalize the sound that is present on Schizo Deluxe is a perfect combination of Alice in Hell and All For You. For those of you unfamiliar with Annihilator back catalogs this simply means that the album has an old school thrash mentality presented in a very modern and groove oriented approach. It’s one of the best modern thrash albums that has been released.

The guitar work (not all that surprising from Jeff Waters) is absolutely stunning. The precision that Jeff uses is like listening to pure ecstasy for guitar players. His rhythm tracks are catchy, unique, heavy, and fast – something that is hard to combine without deterring from the rest of the music. The leads are technical and sharp. Waters really doesn’t hold back the shredding from evolving on Schizo Deluxe. The solos are emotional and pure gold. This is some of his best guitar work in decades.

The one thing about Annihilator that I always appreciated was the use of the bass guitar as a fleshed out instrument instead of a simple back-up or underlying sound. The bass is no different on this album with plenty of catchy heavy deep tones that pop forward in some of the breaks of the music. The drums are also very technical but somewhat of the weakest part of the instrumental part of the album. By weakest, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t spectacular by any means – because they are. This is just relevance to the how well the music is written on the album and how talented Jeff Waters truly is.

The most controversial part of the “newest” Annihilator lineup is vocalist John Padden. His appearance on the last album brought about claims of “nu metal” and “sell-out” but John really shows his colors on Schizo Deluxe – much to the dismay of his naysayers. He gives the album great variety with some harsher tones intermixed with higher parts. His slight and unusual tongue-in-cheek approach fits extremely well with the slightly ridiculous nature of the lyrics that Jeff Waters pens.

The lyrics as stated above continue Jeff’s slightly humored approach to writing. Not all the lyrics are this way – there are very serious topics approached in the lyrics like violence in the media, war, terrorism, and mental disorders (specifically schizophrenia as the title so elegantly approaches). There are just moments in every song that seem worded a little strangely. It works well with the music (and even the really quick change at the beginning of the song “Pride” often brings out laughter).

I personally loved All For You but Schizo Deluxe easily tops that album along with most of the albums released by Annihilator in the past decade. I voted this album as best album of the year for 2005.

Songs to check out: Warbird, Pride, Clare.