Schizo Deluxe

Schizo Deluxe is the eleventh album on which, around Jeff Waters’s sharply biting guitar, fast piling rhythm and uneasy, crazed melody are deftly combined. Following the previous All for You, Dave Padden handled the vocals. The songs dizzyingly change expression, yet at their base the riffs’ powerful aggression and an ironic, eerie atmosphere consistently flow. From the aggression of the opener “Maximum Satan” and the drama of “Warbird” to cuts like “Plasma Zombies,” “Drive” and “Like Father, Like Gun,” every song, while technical, holds sure hooks. Even fully foregrounding high playing technique, a rough rock-and-roll drive firmly remains in the songs. As the title suggests, a record letting you fully enjoy a construction that develops dizzyingly to a “schizophrenic” degree and Annihilator’s own intelligence and violence. Jeff Waters’s outstanding guitar work is in sharp form throughout. Concentrating the appeal of technical thrash at high polish, it is a fulfilling, powerful work — a record where madness and technique coexist.