A Review of the 2002 Album "Waking the Fury" by Thrash Metal Band Annihilator

1. Ultra-Motion
2. Torn
3. My Precious Lunatic Asylum
4. Striker
5. Ritual
6. Prime-Time Killing
7. The Blackest Day
8. Nothing to Me
9. Fire Power
10. Cold Blooded

Annihilator seems that they can do nothing wrong when it comes to writing songs and albums. This is especially true of their 2002 album Waking the Fury. In spite of the unusual guitar sound on this album, we have another outstanding effort buy these Canadian thrash metal legends thanks to the guitar wizardry and creative intellect of guitarist and band founder Jeff Waters. Returning for this album is the great Joe Comeau who provided one heck of a vocal performance on 2001’s Carnival Diablos album as he did a good Rob Halford and Bruce Dickinson vocal impersonation. Russell Bergquist who played bass guitar on the album Criteria for a Black Widow returns this time as a touring bassist. Randy Black who played for Annihilator in the mid 1990’s makes his return once again to contribute. The other guitarist playing on this album is Curran Murphy. Waking the Fury is a much underrated heavy metal album by a great band! If you give this one a chance, you will love it as much as I did!

Well, it is 2023 and Waking the Fury deserves a look back. The electronic, dirty sound will definitely not appeal to certain fans who will not like it but you have to appreciate how these Canadians have lasted as long as they have with the amount of competition that they have faced. There is still the passion, aggression, and fury for Canada’s Annihilator and although this band didn’t wake up from any sub-par moment, Waking the Fury has that experimentation with dirty, electronic sounds and these sounds do not seriously make the album’s score decline.

Ultra-Motion starts off this album which may turn off some fans because of the messy, electronic style but do not worry because by the 5^th song “The Ritual” your worries will have dissipated. Speed and aggression are a deadly combination in real life so please live responsibly.

My Precious Lunatic Asylum has a really dirty guitar tone in it but it is still a good song for those of you that can handle this kind of guitar tone. Even when Annihilator uses a dirty guitar tone, the quality of the songs still remains high and they can entertain music fans like me! This song has a terrific melody section in the three minute mark followed by a good solo! Striker is an exciting song and it is one of the fastest songs in the band’s career. Striker is about someone who is going forge ahead as he battles all those that are against him. He is determined to will his way to victory if that’s what it takes. Then comes the extremely catchy but slower song called Ritual.

We hear a weird start to the song “The Blackest Day” but in usual Annihilator fashion, it is a very catchy and entertaining song. The song is about the impending destruction of the world as we know it. Nothing to Me is an angry, aggressive mid-tempo song about being against someone who tries to take advantage of others to get things for free. Annihilator has covered this theme before with songs such as 1996’s Anything for Money. Respect isn’t given it is earned. Yet some people are really disrespectful of others and this song also addresses the issue of respect. The album comes to a furious finish with the fast song Cold Blooded. This is a similar kind of finish that we saw at the end of Carnival Diablos with the song Hunter Killer.

Overall, I have nothing bad to say about 2002’s Waking the Fury. It is an album filled with ten solid songs and it is one of the band’s best albums, even better than Criteria for a Black Widow and Remains. This writer gives Waking the Fury a very solid 95 out of 100 points!