With all the hype and hoopla surrounding this album – largely due to the guest appearances of noteworthies such as Jeff Loomis (Nevermore), Alexi Laiho (Children Of Bodom), Lips (Anvil), Angela Gossow and Michael Amott (Arch Enemy) to name a few – a lot of people are expecting it to be the equivalent of a musical face-plant for guitarist/founder Jeff Waters. As it turns out, Metal is easily the strongest Annihilator album since Carnival Diablo from 2001, possessing a similar raw-edged attack with equal parts of Refresh The Demon and Never, Neverland thrown in for good measure. Waters is in a great place creatively at the moment, dishing out – some will say “trademark;” others will say “rehashed” – steel-handed rhythmic riffery and lightning-charged solos as only he can, coughing up an opus that manages to live up to its delightfully obnoxious title. Lead track ‘Clown Parade’ gets things off to a rollicking start with its ‘King Of The Kill’-on-crack pace, vocalist Dave Padden setting the tone with his own brand of melodic brutality that, sorry folks, makes Joe Comeau’s previous work with the band pale in comparison. There are plenty more high speed antics to be had in the spirit of Never Neverland’s classic strafing run of ‘Phantasmagoria’/‘Reduced To Ash’/‘I Am In Command’ through new smokers ‘Downright Dominate’, straight-up go for the throat ‘Kicked’, the driving over-the-top eight minute free-for-all ‘Haunted’ (easily the best track on the album), and the closing thrash attack ‘Chasing The High’. On the “slower” side of things we get groove crushers ‘Detonation’ and ‘Operation Annihilation’, the latter featuring Waters on vocals and both reminiscent of the highly underrated Refresh The Demon album. For the record, there are no frickin’ ballads, which is a major plus. And if you’re looking for a drum god, Mike Mangini is it, putting in the heaviest performance of his career. As for the high profile guest shots, with the exception of Loomis (on ‘Clown Parade’) and Laiho (on ‘Downright Dominate’) chances are you probably wouldn’t know who was playing where without the liner notes, but there’s no denying they bring a freshness to the Annihilator sound. One almost hopes Waters will make this kind of thing a tradition. I question the placement of ‘Couple Suicide’ (featuring vocals from Danko Jones and Angela Gossow) as the second song in, which dumbs down the momentum set by ‘Clown Parade’ in spite of being a brilliant, quick shot to the head, but the only real bummer is ‘Army Of One’, which suffers from a lame, castrated vocal performance from Padden. Ironic considering the song is Waters’ tribute to metal. Bottom line, though, this sucker ranks in the top three of the Annihilator catalogue as far as all-out no-holds-barred in-your-face metal is concerned.