There are bands which have gained a place of honour in the metal annals with their classic albums. Whatever happens around them, their name always provokes interest. Regardless of the fact that it rusts already, and that their latest albums do not clean it at all, they remain favourites of the metalheads. Annihilator is one of these bands. For a third album in a row, the main core of the band remains stable: Jeff Waters plays all the strings, Mike Mangini is on the drums, and Dave Padden is on the microphone. And steadily, every other year, we receive from them a dose of tight, melodic (although slightly pathetic) thrash metal. With their new album Annihilator promise us only pure metal. Starting with the title, going on through the compositions written as if by a book for a classic metal record, to the fact that for each of the ten songs Jeff has invited guitar players of leading metal bands (look at the list below). But, despite the stilted boastings that this will be the best guitar album lately, we don’t get miracles of six-string bravery. Not that the songs and the solos are weak, but having such a constellation of guitarists, the expectations are a bit different. What we have here is a well-stirred mix of songs we’ve already heard, however presented by professionals. We can look at the album in two aspects. On one hand, Jeff Waters is a true metal fan and, being such, he plays what he loves to listen to, what is in his heart, what metal is for him, and in the lyrics he pays honor to bands which have inspired him (“Army of One”, “Kicked”) and marks respect to them in riffs (“Detonation”). In other words, if metal is in your blood and you want to listen to it in its purest form, this album is obligatory for you. On the other hand, however, “Metal” is nothing but heavy metal from the dawn of the 90’s, beaten out of the dust and played by a guitar dream-team. Through the typical Annihilator signature we can notice candid loans of earlier albums by the band like “Set the World on Fire” and “King of the Kill” (“Army of One”, “Operation Annihilation”). Despite the few interesting hits, like the melodic solo and the great line of clean vocals in the middle of “Haunted”, most of the songs do not shine with bright ideas... but even in this case the album is worth hearing. By curiosity. Who knows, you may find a piece of metal just for you in there... The guests on “Metal”: 1. “Clown Parade” - Jeff Loomis (Nevermore) 2. “Couple Suicide” - Danko Jones (Danko Jones), Angela Gossow (Arch Enemy) 3. “Army of One” - Steve “Lips” Kudlow (Anvil) 4. “Downright Dominate” - Alexi Laiho (Children of Bodom) 5. “Smothered” - Anders Bjørler (The Haunted) 6. “Operation Annihilation” - Michael Amott (Arch Enemy) 7. “Haunted” - Jesper Strømblad (In Flames) 8. “Kicked” - Corey Beaulieu (Trivium) 9. “Detonation” - Jacob Lynam (Lynam) 10. “Chasing the High” - William Adler (Lamb of God)