Anthrax-Worship Music

Megaforce
2011

It been a long time coming, but finally a new studio Anthrax album is upon us. The last several years saw the band go back and forth with vocalist changes, they did some tours and began recording. Finally they settled upon longtime former vocalist Joey Belladonna to fill the void. No surprise that the new albums sounds like some of their old albums. In fact must of this release sounds like an album that could have been done between State of Euphoria and Persistence of time. So let's break the new album down. "Worship" is a humming intro that's alright, but doesn't add much. "Earth on hell" comes on with a steady pace, but furious drum beats pick it up and help give it a gigantic sound. The overall control has me thinking back to
1990's "Persistence of time" only Joey's voice is slightly deeper now. "The devil you know" rides on a simple but blistering riff. Yet the slow part around 2:40 in and the swirly solo that follows it drag the song down for me. "Fight 'em till you can't" emerges with a stomping beat and the song sounds a lot like late 80's Anthrax except that Joey's vocals are a bit more melodic. They really keep the energy high on this song all the way through. "I'm alive" comes on slow, but quickly builds steam as it grows to become a heavy monster. Although the lack of ideas around 3/4 of the way through has them trying to glide this one out to it's five and half minutes plus run time. "In the end" is a song of halves. The first half slowly comes on and unfortunately lacks the focus to really pull me in right away. Halfway through the song steps up and hears the band crank out some of the strongest parts of the album so far. Again they overstay their welcome just a bit. "The giant" is an appropriate title becomes this big killer comes on with mighty twisted riff and Belladonna is just on top of every word. A powerful song which has the band doing everything right. "Judas Priest" is a thick choppy tune that does a decent job of making an impact while keeping the power level relatively high. If there is filler on this album it's "Crawl". It's an okay track that never quite steps up enough to develop any real identity of it's own. "The constant" goes on a low simmer and despite being a little below the surface it still works out. Joey Belladonna sounds slightly different here, but comfortable and he helps to really sell this song. Without him it's pretty basic, but he definitely elevates it. "Revolution Screams" has Charlie all over his drum kit and the beginning part is good, but not totally different from other songs on the albums. However the last 3 or so minutes hear the band let go and show some force that they only use sparingly before this song. I was hoping for a more full throttle closer, but this will work well enough. So it's not perfect as an album. There's some filler, some similar sounding songs and a few light moments. Perhaps a few old timers might proclaim this album a return to the glory days, but it doesn't quite get to that level although the band tried hard. Still it's easily their best album since The sound of white noise. I really hope that this albums sells well in so that they maintain this line-up and release albums more frequently than they have in recent years.