We've Come For You All

The new album from Anthrax is almost here! It will be out February 24th in Europe and Japan (North American fans will have to wait until April). It's been almost five years since the release of their last studio album, Volume 8 - The Threat Is Real (ironic album title in that it predated the anthrax attacks by 4 years!). In that time, we saw the release of the Attack Of The Killer A's, a best of compilation. The band has had lots of hassles to deal with since then. First off, their label went under leaving them without a record deal, and with all the aftermath of the anthrax attacks in the U.S., were facing surging public pressure to change their name. I think the band got some much needed free publicity over that as I remember seeing Scott Ian and John Bush on television numerous times. I'm glad they stuck to their principles and kept the name. I remember Scott saying he heard the name "anthrax" mentioned in biology class in high school and thought it was a cool name. Since his current band was looking for a name, Anthrax it became.

This new album is the fourth album to feature the vocals of John Bush (Armored Saint) and also introduces new guitarist, Rob Caggiano, who also helps out with the production of this album. Former guitarist, Paul Crook, has left the band and is now the guitarist for Meatloaf(?). This release is also the band's first album for their new label, Nuclear Blast Records. It looks like they're finally going to get some solid label support and publicity this time, something that was severely lacking with both Stomp 442 and Volume 8 - The Threat Is Real.

After an intro featuring acoustic guitar, march-like drumming, thundering guitar and some synthesized voices, the album quickly kicks into gear with What Doesn't Die, one of the best Anthrax songs I've heard in a long time. It has it all, machine gun style riffs, fast double bass drumming and an overall hard driving sound. The gang shouting vocals by Scott Ian are here in full form as are some wild lead guitar. John Bush's voice sounds as great as ever in it's power, attitude and defiant character. This song in itself, exemplifies the current state of the Anthrax sound as any song they've done in many, many years and with the attitude and title of the song, it is a fitting tribute to the longevity of this band. Superhero is another highlight and features a slower pounding heavy riff with a vocal style that suggests that this band certainly has it's ears open to the current styles in the world of popular heavy music. Safe Home, the first single released from this album, is a more mid-tempo and laid back track but still very heavy in style. It has a great sense of melody and some great lead guitar as well. Other album highlights (for me anyway) are the tracks Think About An End and the title track, We've Come For You All. Both have the typically heavy Anthrax groove with the crunchy guitar sound and are examples of a new melodic sense that the band has with it's new material. This adds an element of catchiness to the choruses and gives all the tracks more of a sense of "completeness", something that's been missing on their last few releases.

The rest of the album has lots of other solid tracks and I didn't really find any "filler" material here. A lot of time and effort has gone into making this album the best album it can be for this stage in the band's career. The chunky groove that this band is known for is all over this album as are lots of quirky guitar harmonics, tongue-in-cheek lyrics, gang style shouts and an attitude that is unmistakably Anthrax. This album has all the passion and anger of some of the nu-metal and rap-metal bands but it has more style, originality and the songwriting is immensely better. After all, these guys helped pioneer those two genres didn't they? Although those types of influences are found, mainly with the vocals, no need to worry, the band stays true to it's metal roots and delivers an album that slays anything by their illegitimate children (i.e. Korn, Limp Bizkit, Slipknot etc.). For a band so well respected and influential, it's unfortunate that they never made it as big as others from the same era (Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer etc.). With a new record contract, a new outlook and some noticeable improvements in the band's songwriting, this may be the one big chance this band has to really make some major noise on the metal music scene. I hope it happens for them, they so deserve it.