Following the cancelation of ANNIHILATOR‘s appearance at the Topfest in Slovakia, which was scheduled for late this month, the Canadian thrash metal pioneers have announced a livestream event from the United Kingdom celebrating the 35th anniversary of ANNIHILATOR‘s classic debut album, “Alice In Hell”, with former ICED EARTH frontman Stu Block singing the entire record. There will also be a few “best-of” songs that will include “hits” chosen by the fans.
ANNIHILATOR guitarist and founder Jeff Waters said in a video message announcing the livestream: “We are celebrating, as some of you already know, the ‘Alice In Hell’ record, which is 35 years old now. And to celebrate that for you, actually, we want to do, and we’ll do, a livestream, one-off, no downloads, no repeats. It’s gonna happen on Saturday, June the 29th. We are gonna play the entire ‘Alice In Hell’ record. We’re gonna play some other classic ANNIHILATOR songs. We are gonna give you some documentary footage talking about the record and the making of the album and the early days. Also, we are featuring Stu Block — yes, the amazing Stu Block is going to sing in honor of Randy Rampage, the original singer, and we’re gonna have a blast. So come and join us Saturday, June 29th. Check it out.”
The livestream will take place on June 29 at 12 p.m. PDT / 3 p.m. EDT / 8 p.m. BST / 9 p.m. CEST.
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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 “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.
“Alice In Hell” was the first of six ANNIHILATOR albums to feature songwriting contributions from the band’s former singer John Bates, who was credited as the co-writer of the songs “Alison Hell”, “W.T.Y.D.”, “Burns Like A Buzzsaw Blade” and “Human Insecticide”.
To promote “Alice In Hell”, ANNIHILATOR supported ONSLAUGHT internationally on the “In Search Of Sanity” tour, and TESTAMENT in the United States on the “Practice What You Preach” tour.
“Alice In Hell” was re-released twice: in 1998 with three demo tracks as bonus tracks and again in September 2003 as part of a two-disc compilation set along with “Never, Neverland”, titled “Two From The Vault”.
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.