Random Song: Annihilator - Human Insecticide

On a scale of 1 to 10, how good is Human Insecticide?

  • 10

    Votes: 1 10.0%

  • 9

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 8

    Votes: 2 20.0%

  • 7

    Votes: 3 30.0%

  • 6

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 5

    Votes: 2 20.0%

  • 4

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 3

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 2

    Votes: 1 10.0%

  • 1

    Votes: 1 10.0%
  • Total voters
    10
Perun

Perun

His name struck fear into hearts of men
Staff member
mckindog said:
Welcome to the first random song thread.
I pick a non-Maiden song, cast my vote,  and get the conversation started.
You guys post your votes (using a similar criteria you used on the Maiden daily song thread) and add your thoughts.
Two days later, the first guy to respond to this thread picks a song he wants to discuss and starts a new thread. If he doesn’t want start the next thread, he can pass that option to the next guy.
Only rule is to pick songs you think a majority of forum users will be familiar with.
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Guess it's my turn now. I suppose we shouldn't be too careful with that familiarity thing, because otherwise we'd only be having a run of Metallica, Dio and Judas Priest songs.

So, I'm going to pick out a real gem of a thrash metal classic and propose Annihilator - Human Insecticide. (For those who don't know it, listen to it here)

One of my favourite songs of all time. Annihilator were true riff masters back in the day, as is shown on the Alice in Hell album. This song is no exception. The intro is fantastic, and I have always felt the guitars to have a black metal affinity. I'd even lean out and say this is one of the darkest-sounding intros ever. The rest of the song lives up to it in an incredibly fast, energetic and harsh way. Somehow, the chorus sounds much more evil than anything bands such as Cannibal Corpse or I guess even Dark Funeral have put on tape. Don't miss the instrumental break, perfectly exhibiting the idea of "technical thrash metal" Annihilator always get associated with - although for the most part, it's just brilliant headbanging action. For five minutes, you can forget about Slayer, Exodus or Testament and appreciate for yourself that this is pure thrash metal the way it was always supposed to be. 10/10.

Fun fact: For some reason, I used to mishear the "Re! Ta! Li! Ate!" chorus for "We are the ants". That would actually have been kind of cool.
 
First time I hear this song.
Riffs are very good.
Bass sounds amazing and it's weird that it's not buried in the mix like in most thrash metal bands! :o
Vocals are OK, suitable for this kind of music, but nothing special really.
Drums could've been louder.
I can't really rate it yet, 'cause I heard it only once.

P.S. I pass the right of opening the next thread to the next poster.
 
I've heard a few good things about Annihilator now, never listened to them before though. Like Night Prowler, I can't rate due to never having heard the song before now. I must say, I'm very impressed! There really is so much underrated thrash out there outside of The Big 4.

I'm also getting We are the Ants from it too :D
 
I actually think projects such as this are a good way to introduce people to new music.
 
I will definitely be picking up one of these guys albums soon! Which one do you recommend to start off with?
 
Alice in Hell, their debut. It's their best album, and one of the best thrash albums ever. Unfortunately, their later efforts were a bit uneven, especially in the mid- to late nineties.
 
Call me old-fashioned and quaint, but I think songs should have melodies.  Even metal songs.  Even thrash or speed metal songs should have a hummable riff.  This doesn't.  So, it can't really get too high a grade from me.  The riff, while fast, wasn't all that interesting.  But as thrash goes, it certainly fits the genre.  The break was pretty cool, and I made it through without getting bored.  5/10
 
Nice fast melodic stuff. I think Annihilator is a great band, and this song has some nice riffing all the way through. I love the break at 2:40ish. I don't mind the singing much though. 8/10
 
This track is, in my opinion, not the best on Alice in Hell (W.T.Y.D. has that accolade) but it's a good track nonetheless. The thing about this track is that it sits on an album that is just choc-full of gems - not one track on this album can be called poor or just good.

That said, 8/10.
 
First listen for me too.
Good riff, nice mid-section and (of course) good energy.
More melodic than much of the genre.
Not melodic enough though.
Six.
 
Cornfed Hick said:
Call me old-fashioned and quaint, but I think songs should have melodies.  Even metal songs.  Even thrash or speed metal songs should have a hummable riff.  This doesn't.
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Ditto. Had a hard time listening to the whole tune. It blows. I give it a low 1.
 
Night Prowler said:
First time I hear this song.
Riffs are very good.
Bass sounds amazing and it's weird that it's not buried in the mix like in most thrash metal bands! :o
Vocals are OK, suitable for this kind of music, but nothing special really.
Drums could've been louder.
I can't really rate it yet, 'cause I heard it only once.
Click to expand...
7/10.
 
Albie said:
This track is, in my opinion, not the best on Alice in Hell (W.T.Y.D. has that accolade) but it's a good track nonetheless.
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I agree with Albie on this, another personal favourite would be Word Salad, incidentally on the Bag Of Tricks album there are very good live versions of Human Insecticide, W.T.Y.D and Word Salad. Also I do rate Jeff Waters as an excellent guitarist, he is on my list in the Greatest Guitarist thread. I give Human Insecticide 7/10.
 
Cornfed Hick said:
Call me old-fashioned and quaint, but I think songs should have melodies.  Even metal songs.  Even thrash or speed metal songs should have a hummable riff.  This doesn't.  So, it can't really get too high a grade from me.  The riff, while fast, wasn't all that interesting.  But as thrash goes, it certainly fits the genre.   The break was pretty cool, and I made it through without getting bored.  5/10
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I'm not calling you old-fashioned, because this music is pretty old-fashioned itself. The album got released in 1989.

I suppose this is just where tastes and opinions divert. I think the song is immensely melodic for a thrash metal song (almost as melodic as Testament in their heyday), but I have to admit that I am probably viewing it from the "extreme" perspective nowadays. Most of what I listen to these days is black and death metal (although there is a fair share of heavy and power metal in the mix), so obviously this comes across as "light" or "soft" by those standards.

Still, I always thought Annihilator got a heavy broadside from the old Iron Maiden, which accounts for their "technical" merits. This isn't just another thrash metal band, but they have much musical and compositorial quality that sets them apart from most other thrash metal bands. Unfortunately, this is counterbalanced by Jeff Waters' ego, so they never actually picked off.
 
Like Perun points out, I guess it's all about perspective.
When I hear "melodic" I think the most obvious genre is pop — be it obvious, frothy modern pop like a Taylor Swift, or smarter pop like Elton John in his heyday.
And I generally think about the vocal part.
In those terms, this song doesn't strike me as particularly melodic; The chorus and verses aren't particularly catchy; Its best feature is its great energy.
But melody also comes from the chord structure framing it and this song certainly has a solid melodic structure in its composition
— particularly when compared to death metal and more extreme forms of purely aggressive music that came later.
My favourite music tends to have good melodies in addition to raw aggression and hopefully some more complex musical structure, or performances.
In my mind it's the melodies that separate a great thrashy metal song like Fast as a Shark or Painkiller from a host of bands with goals that seem to be focussed simply on being harder, or faster.
Annihilator were certainly pushing in that direction, but hadn't abandoned melody entirely.
When judging the melody of a metal song, I find myself asking what it would it sound like stripped down to piano or acoustic guitar and voice. Would it strike an emotional chord, or lodge itself deep in my brain?
Here are a couple remakes of classic metal tracks that in my view show the compositions pass the melodic test:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1dfiWnErdM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfPrWNSD140
 
Songs like 'Judas', 'Ride the Sky' & 'Victim of Fate' (all older than Annihilator's discography) by Helloween are imo at least as hard, but at the same time more melodic. That's the reason why I rate Walls of Jericho above all trash. It's more catchy, fits better to my taste.

It's not that I don't like non-melodic music, I can also dig a great riff. But when there's a great harmony, melody or solo, then that song wins.
 
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