ANTHRAX. The name should need no introduction as I’m sure most of our readers here will realize I am talking about the American thrash/heavy metal/rock/rap band and not the biological killer. The band formed in the early 1980’s and released several noteworthy albums throughout the decade, my personal favorites being Among The Living and Persistance Of Time or P.O.T. for short. The band like others of the decade had it’s own mascot (The Not Man) and some say could have even had a hand in pioneering today’s Nu-metal scene by recording Bring The Noise with the then controversial rap act Public Enemy. The band seemed to lose a bit of ground in the early 90’s when they split with original singer Joey Belladonna. A move that was, in my opinion one for the better as I was never a HUGE fan of his. I was and am however pretty partial (being a big Armored Saint fan) to his replacement, current singer John Bush. The band released their first album with him at the mic in 1993. The Sound Of White Noise as it was called, took them on a pretty good tour of the United States with White Zombie (who I am pretty sure actually opened the shows if I remember correctly) and even spawned them somewhat of a radio and MTV hit with the song Only. That album was a bit of a change in sound for them as it saw them experimenting a bit with some different arrangements and that. It’s also another one of my personal favorites of there’s. It was this album that really got me into ANTHRAX actually. But alas enough with the history lesson and fan boy posturing, let’s talk about something important.
And what’s important is ANTHRAX has released a new album and this CD is a promotional copy featuring 4 songs from the upcoming full length. As far as more recent ANTHRAX output, I liked the Stomp 442 album a lot, and I actually liked most of their last album, Volume 8 with the exception of a few songs that should have been saved for B sides in my opinion. On Volume 8 the band seemed to be kind of developing an almost “radio rock” type of sound as parts of it sort of reminded me of Creed, Godsmack, and the like. The 4 songs on this CD seem a lot like Volume 8 to me. Not to say this is a carbon copy, just basically in the same vein if you smell what I’m cookin’. I catch a definite “Rock N’ Roll” vibe from it. The first song, What Doesn’t Die is definitely my favorite on the CD. It’s a metal thrasher that screams out of the speakers with a sound of urgency I haven’t heard from these dudes in a while and it really got my hopes up for what was to follow. It definitely made my head bang and that’s always a good thing. Unfortunately what was to follow was not as great. The next song up, Safe Home would definitely be right at home on MTV or on commercial rock radio. Seriously, I could imagine hearing it right next to Saliva, Disturbed or a band like that. It’s not that it’s a BAD song per se it’s just not that great to me. And for the sake of comparison, their song Only, a single from The Sound Of White Noise album sounded more kick ass and metal then this. I only say that because I believe Safe Home is their single for the new album. An unfortunate thumbs down from me on that one. Taking The Music Back is next and it’s kind of a fun rock song. Not bad, again not outstanding but better than Safe Home if you ask me. I would venture to guess the band will be playing Taking The Music Back a lot on tour as I think newcomers to the group will definitely dig it played live. It comes across as a good live song on CD. The last song up is called Think About An End and to me it sounds like something straight off Volume 8. I really like the verses, but the chorus gets a bit repetitive to my ears.
All in all, the material here is not bad by any means. It has a nice sound, some good riffs and John Bush is an EXCELLENT singer in my opinion. The guy has a lot of soul to his voice and a really great timbre. 2 things which aren’t very common when it comes to 80’s thrash bands. I personally like him a lot better than Joey Belladonna. But anyway, the instrumentation and presentation here is good also, just not great. Here in lies the problem with this new material for me. I want to love it all and I do like some of it a lot. It’s just more often than not, it comes off as painfully average to me. I have a similar dilemma with the new Metallica, but that’s for a different review. Just the same, I will definitely put a “Try before you buy if possible” stamp on this. These songs overall are basically low on aggression and sort of moderate on overall energy level. My advice? Make more songs like What Doesn’t Die guys!!!!!! *LOL*

Anthrax