35 years after releasing the legendary “Alice In Hell” album, ANNIHILATOR will play it all at an exclusive appearance at Topfest 2024 in Slovakia next June.
Former ICED EARTH frontman Stu Block will sing the entire “Alice In Hell” record, along with the return of original drummer Ray Hartmann. There will also be a few “best-of” songs that will include “hits” chosen by the fans.
ANNIHILATOR guitarist and leader Jeff Waters commented: “Ok, Metal World! First, ANNIHILATOR hope you all have a great holiday season. Be healthy, happy, good and crank good music!
“2024 is the year of Alice: ‘Alice In Hell’. 35 years since its release and we will be celebrating with many of you for the year with merch, signature guitars, shows, events, catalogue re-issues, etc… and this will lead us into 2025, which is the anniversary of our biggest record: ‘Never, Neverland’. Alice will continue on with us, into 2025.
“Drummer Ray Hartmann is back. Yup. Great to have one of the best, back in the saddle again, playing the songs he recorded decades ago!
“More? How about the best singer we could possibly have brought into the band: Stu Block.
“Randy Rampage, ‘Alice In Hell’‘s vocalist and awesome frontman, passed away a few years back. To honor Rampage, I had a tough job to find someone to fill his shoes for this anniversary.
“Stu may be known as a badass vocalist and frontman BUT he also loves Rampage‘s attitude and will be the perfect singer to channel this classic record onstage. Longtime fellow axe-clingers Rich Gray (4 strings!) and Aaron Homma (6 strings!) also continue their journey with ANNIHILATOR.
“Stage? Oh yea. Let us just start with this: ANNIHILATOR will be co-headlining, along with SCORPIONS and FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH, at Topfest, Slovakia on June 29, 2024. We will play the entire ‘Alice’ record, along with some other rockin’ tunes.
“This will be an exclusive Europe festival show for 2024, however, we will be announcing lots more, starting January. We have NOT forgotten anyone. We will do our best in 2024-2025+ to get to where we should have been playing AND to where we already have!
“So, thank you all for getting ANNIHILATOR to the point of 17 studio records, a zillion tours and STILL rockin, after all these years. We are very aware that we’re still going strong because of our fans; not the industry.
“On that note, any festivals and promoters that want this legendary ‘Alice’/‘Neverland’ set in 2025, talk to our dude Nik at Bottom Row for Europe and our web site contact for everywhere else!
“Check the socials for regular updates now, cause we have a lot coming for you!
“Love and Metal to all”.
Block can be heard on “Metal II”, the reworked version of ANNIHILATOR‘s 2007 “Metal” studio album. “Metal II” also features former SLAYER drummer Dave Lombardo.
Founded in 1984, ANNIHILATOR took the metal scene by storm with its debut 1989 release “Alice In Hell”, upped the ante with 1990’s “Never, Neverland” and has continued a non-stop career-pattern of releasing records and touring with many of the biggest bands in the metal genre (mostly all outside North America),ever since, cementing ANNIHILATOR as the biggest-selling metal act in Canada’s history.
Two years ago, earMusic announced a reissue series of (almost) the entire ANNIHILATOR catalog. In total, 18 records are being released over the next few years, including the original 2007 version of the “Metal” album.