Annihilator - Bag Of Tricks

Most of the time a Canadian Metal band comes out I kind of cringe. I was never a fan of Helix or Anvil or any of those other groups. Then I was introduced to Annihilator, but specifically the Bag of Tricks album. How the hell my first album from a band ends up being a collection of demos, live tracks, alternate mixes and various other studio tracks I will never know.

The album opens with Alison Hell (remastered version). This is the bands most popular song, according to the liner notes. That makes total sense to me since it's so well done. First it starts off all Iron Maiden like with a blend of classical galloping guitars and big open riffs, almost like a take from Number Of The Beast. From there it goes a bit accoustic before finally settling into go Metal chugging. The Vocals are a bit WASPish, like many of those early 80's shock rockers. I like the theatricallity of it, as well as the the idea of the haunting/stalking nightmarish story.

From there the album moves to the Phantasmagoria (demo version) which is your pretty basic bang your head Metal. This one reminds me of Anthrax, it has a New York/Brooklyn feel, which I only like every now and then. I don't mind it here. Now the only reason the song is listed as a demo is due to the fact it did end up on a later album, Never, Neverland, but this version features original vocalist Randy Rampage. This song was recorded at the same time as the next two songs.

The liner notes state that Back To The Crypt was written and recorded in 1989 as a preproduction demo along with Gallery, which follows after on this CD. The first song has a very AC/DC sounding rock feel, and then quickly devolves into that New York fury. I find that so funny since this is a band from Vancouver. The reason I won't call it Bay Area Thrash is due to it sounding so clean.

Gallery has a feel like Metallica 's Welcome Home (Sanitarium), if Sanitarium had been recorded for Megadeth's Hangar 18. Musically I think the song is great. The Vocals are ass.

It should also be mentioned, that it is mentioned, that the last two songs were later Frankenstien'd into the song Never, Neverland, from the album of the same name. Human Insecticide (live) does not sound like it's really live. It sounds like it was studio live. In other words a little Hall reverb was added on, with some light ambient crowd for effect. The song is pretty good with it's high speed, constant riffing. This is pretty basic Hard/Metal, but enjoyable, buried in a random mix somewhere.

Soemtimes when a band/member/producer feels a song needs to be tightened up they'll cut small sections out of a song. The Fun Palace (extended mix) has 30 seconds of instrumental re-added to it, because some people clearly just don't like extended musical awesomeness. I don't get why any cuts were made, other than they were worried metal midgets would tune out. Sorry if you know the difference between the two, and like the other version better. I must say that I really like the fact that lyrically Annihilator reads like Alice Cooper. "Panic your conscience lied / Trapped inside / Panic your ultimate nightmare / Welcome to the fun palace / Panic just try to scream / It's only a dream / Panic your ultimate nightmare / Welcome to the palace".

W.T.Y.D. (live) is one of two songs featuring Coburn Pharr giving a vocal performance of "Classic" Annihilator. This song was originally done by Randy Rampage for the Alice In Hell LP, and although this live track is much better than the previous live track had been, it's not as good as the original album cut. Basically the vocals are good, but not the same, the performance style isn't there. However, that doesn't mean this song isn't good. It's decent live Metal that get's the blood pumping.

Word Salad (live) Is the second song. This is a great song musically. I have always thought so. It's a bit standard with the constant eight (maybe sixteenth) noted high speed double bass drums. However, lyrically I think this song is a piece of shit, thanks to the chorus of "Word Salad, no ballad / Word Salad, no ballad".

That brings me to a killer cover of a great AC/DC song, Live Wire (live). It's very easy to hear the AC/DC influence on Jeff Waters (guitarist, principle memmber), and in this song we get to hear Annihilator pull off a cover so well done that I have it on my Mp3 more than I have ever had the original. Not to say it's better than the original, but this song is always better live than in the studio. Also vocalist Coburn Pharr sounds like a genius mix of Bon Scott and Brian Johnson doing this song.

One might think a song about chess would be boring, but Knight Jumps Queen (demo version) proves them wrong. I've scanned every bit of the lryics to see if this is even supposed to be like AC/DC's The Jack with a whole giant game inuendo theme, but that's not the case. It's pretty much a song about a game of chess, and it's really good. I actually listen to this song a lot. Knight Jumps Queen is different from the official release because it features Coburn Pharr on vocals, instead of Aaron Randall which was on the album version from Set The World On Fire.

Fantastic Things is from the same demo sessions as Knight Jumps Queen, and this song has bassist Wayne Darley singing instead. There was even a version of this song recorded for Set The World On Fire as well, but it ended up being cut. I think that was a good call because Annihilator should not sound like Tesla, and that's the best comparison here.

Annihilator has been through a lot of vocalists. Coburn Pharr was the second and had been around for the demo phase for Set The World On Fire, so a few of the tracks on here have him singing songs that fans would know better as Aaron Randall songs. The Bats In The Belfry (demo version) is a great song. If it hadn't been listed as a demo I wouldn't have thought it was. It sounds better produced than quite a few songs/albums that were on The Last Action Hero sountrack. In fact this song could have easily been on that album.

Evil Appetite is also from that recording session, and later became Don't Bother Me for the album. I love the boogie woogie feel to this one. This is very much an AC/DC like song, but the guitar leads and vocals sound very early 90's glam. I want to say Extreme or Tesla, maybe even a bit Jackylish (although that sounds insulting).

Gallery '86, Alison Hell '86, Phantasmagoria '86 are all demos recorded in 1986 in Jeff Water's basement on a Fostex four track recorder. That would be cassette tape recording for anyone that thinks digital home recording has alway been around. The sound on these songs is very demo and yet awesome, especially listening to Jeff performing the Death Metal vocals because Ottawa had a short supply of them at the time.

The one thing I find most interesting about this album is that Gallery appears on it twice, in two different demos, but never made it to a single album as it's own song. Just in bits and pieces.

All in all this is a great CD if you are a fan of Annihilator and you've got to have all those rare little goodies. I'm not that big of a fan. As of my writing this I only own one other album, and that's Alice In Hell. However, I love this album. It has some really great selections that even in their demo state are great songs. If you are looking to try something different, but yet not to different, I would suggest trying this one. You may be surprised, but on the other hand I have known people to not be overly fond of this album too.

7/10 - content

6/10 - production

8/10 - personal bias