Annihilator – King of the Kill – 1994

There was a time when I thought King of the Kill was the best album ever made! It was music perfectly tailored to me—fast guitars, innovative riffs, and simply put a quite classic Heavy Metal sound. I later explored a few more albums with Annihilator, and even though they naturally differ a bit, there is a common denominator. You can easily hear which band it is, even if Jeff Waters surrounds himself with different musicians almost every time it’s time to record an album. On King of the Kill, he plays everything himself except the drums and, for the first time, also takes on the role of vocalist. It might feel a bit egotistical, but you can’t complain about the result.

Maybe it wouldn’t have worked to do ten albums this way, but who cares—this is fantastic, and it still resides in the top tier of my record collection. The cover on my copy is sun-faded, and the disc is starting to peel, but damn, it’s so good!