Annihilator – Ballistic Sadistic

Label: Silver Lining Music / Warner release: Feb 2020

Wow, difficult to wrap your mind around, but indeed, this is the 17th album of Mr. Waters featuring his own distinctive style, killer riffs and future Thrash classics. And high speed heavy duty Thrash is how Ballistic Sadistic kicks off – and pretty much continues until the heavy duty wrap up. As we know from Annihilator, although the speed or even brutal attacks (I Am Warfare) dominate the album, you always get some melodic parts, semi-acoustic ear candy, sick soli and musical gag/gimmicks (e.g. Attitude) for variation. And there are also more headbanger-friendly tracks (Psycho Ward, One Wrong Move) providing ear candy appeal with great melodies, some nasty Punk attitude and even some epic appeal (Riot). In other words, Annihilator continue their trade mark style and still provide variety. Some variety was offered by all those changing line-ups in the past; since Waters took over the mike duties as well, there’s another trade mark aspect added to the band’s style.

On this album besides mastermind Jeff Waters (vocals & guitar): Aaron Homma (guitar), Rich Hinks (bass) and Fabio Alessandrini (drums).
Summing up: If it says Annihilator, this is exactly what you get, 100 %.
You can listen to the album via band website
https://www.annihilatormetal.com/

ANNIHILATOR “Psycho Ward” Video: