Clockwise from Left/front: Scott Ian, Frank Bello, Charlie Benante, Joey Belladonna, Jon Donias

Photo credit- Stephanie Cabral (Nuclear Blast Records)

GET READY TO BREATHE LIGHTNING AND CRAP THUNDER!!! Yo Adrienne!!! Check out dah new ‘Thrax album!! 12 years ago I attended my first concert ever at the House of Blues in Hollywood (which closed down a couple years back) with the boss, Hostile Jo, and his bro (who is also my bro but that’s a story for another time, bro) and let me tell ya I was not fucking impressed. We were in fucking high school. Just a couple of fucking wee lads! Wearing semi ripped jeans and faded fucking metal shirts cause we wore them all the fucking time! Cause we had so few of them! Actually I should speak for myself cause I owned like 2 Metallica shirts and a DARE shirt that I threw into the rotation a lot. Anyway so there we fucking were waiting for a Dash (ancient and affordable public transportation) on La Cienega Blvd to take us to the venue and man was there excitement in the air (that sounded kinda prissy, let me try again) WE WERE ON A MARCH TO WAR! Or so we thought. I mean Anthrax? One of the Big Four? Really? How the fuck did they get a seat at the big boys table? Who voted them in? Who???!! Tell me!!! Damn. I need to lay off the gummy bears and sudafed. Truth be told, at the time, I had not heard much of Anthrax’s music. At best I had probably only heard Bring the Noise and that’s cause it was on the Tony Hawk Pro skater 2 soundtrack (what a fu*&!ng poser!!! Amirite????).  As I was then, so once were you so suck it. (Ok that was the gummy bears talking) Where was I….oh yeah….Anthrax. First show. HJ said “Get your mosh pit cherry popped prison rape style” (Yeah…fucking…right) Opening for them that evening were bay area thrash metal superstars Death Angel. Those guys were AWESOME! I remember being in awe of the bass player ( I think it was Dennis Peppa at the time). The dude sported a baby blue f*&k!ng fender bass, like cotton candy blue, but he could play that sum’ bitch. Mark Osegueda sang his balls off wearing a sweaty red bandana (he was like a cross between Steven Tyler and Brett Michaels with a goatee) and Ted Aguilar shredded on the guitar like a fucking wood chipper being fed an assembly line of wild cats foaming at the mouth with rabies. Sufferin’ sucotash. Can you imagine??? (That one was the sudafed). DA closed off the set with Kill As One then the ‘Thrax road crew started setting up afterwards as we waited for Scott “bald like my shaved right nut” Ian and company to come on stage. You’re gonna laugh at this but I don’t recall who was on vocals. I don’t remember if it was Joey or John. I wasn’t even drunk let alone of legal drinking age!! Honestly I didn’t give a damn. I vividly remember standing in the crowd swaying in the sea of metal heads, arms fucking crossed and occasionally making direct eye contact with Scott. He knew I was bored. In fact he probably wanted to throw me out so badly but he had no damn excuse. Let’s face it, the show was not sold out and you’re not about to throw out 5% of your audience. Alright I might be exaggerating a bit but you get the idea. Im trying very hard to remember who sang for Anthrax that night but it is all a fucking blur. You know what, it was probably John Bush. Yeah that’s it. I remember telling Vic (HJ’s bro who is also my bro, stop asking me about it, bro) ” Hey look! There is a dude with a buzz cut yelling into a microphone on stage! Where is the singer though?!” Alright so I said no such things but I did look it up and JB was singing for Anthrax at the time. The guy was unmemorable. I mean I remember Frank, Charlie and even Rob with his beanie but not John. Every time I try and remember the singer that night there is a life size hard boiled egg singing “caught in a mosh” in my attempt at recollecting the memory. Anyway after that show I never really gave Anthrax a real chance. Hell I never gave them a chance before the show. I was balls deep in Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, Pantera. All those guys, to me, were untouchable. At the time if you tried to throw Anthrax into my collage of metal it was like putting a picture of your uncle with his pants down, wearing a baseball cap backwards, mooning the camera and smiling with crooked teeth on your resume and presenting it for a babysitting gig. Your uncle being the only reference you had. The four aforementioned bands set the bar for thrash metal (metal in general) so high, anything else just wasn’t good enough. Only a naive closed minded piece a shit would think that way, right? Well that’s exactly what I was. I pulled my fingers out of the juicy vag!n@ that was Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth blah effen blah and went on the prowl for more. It’s hard not to bump into Anthrax tunes when searching metal music. Growing disenchanted with the metal scene in the years to come and becoming bored of the classics I dug into different bands and burned me a play list of Anthrax tunes….on a disc. (Geez I’m old) I listened to their music trying to appreciate the band for what it really was. I felt instant regret……but then it dissipated. Why? No Joey=No Anthrax. Im sorry JB fans but the initials say it all…Just Boring. Even in the fucking studio, although I did like “Only” but that only gets you about 5 points out of a possible 500. Scott and the boys earned their seat at the round table with hits like caught in a mosh, anti social, medusa, indians, just to name a few AND JOEY SANG ON ALL THOSE. UPPERCUT TO YOUR FAAACE! Too bad Rob had to leave the band for VOL”suck my cream cheese danish dick”BEAT. Im sorry but that band is awful. I won’t get into it today cause HJ wants me to show some love to ‘Thrax. Fast forward to Worship Music, Anthrax really proved themselves much like they have in the past. “Fight ’em til you can’t” pummeled it’s way into the ears of metal heads everywhere and started a fucking tsunami like frenzy and kept it going with Joey being back behind the mic. The album was decent but even I knew they could do better. What am I saying??? The album was fucking thrashing!! Fuck yes. Before Worship came along I was fortunate enough to catch Anthrax at the Big Four show in Indio CA. I was solo this time. Other than seeing Jeff Hanneman play his last show before he died there was Anthrax. Watching them be a part of and opening the Big Four made me realize what I had been missing out on all along. It made me appreciate their music more as they’ve managed to stand the test time. And here we finally fucking are….For All Kings….old and new. Making a statement right out of the fucking gate with the opening lyric “you can die screaming or give me what I want” , Joey brings Anthrax back to it’s roots with his distinctive and irreplaceable voice. Scott stays true to his signature riffage and rhythm style (if you’re a true fan and or play guitar you know what I fucking mean). What? riffage is not a word???? IMPALED! YOU ALL SHALL HAIL!! Yes, this song is based on yours truly…..not. Bit of a coincidence though. The moniker came just before the album release. Anthrax’s latest said effort stays strong all the way through. You’ll find elements that have been long lost in the genre for quite some time (as a metal head you’ll understand if not then un-pause your miley cyrus playlist and continue blowing your mother) After years of listening to their heavy then cool then whacky then weird then awesome music catalog you’ll come to know that Anthrax are back and true to form after hearing For All Kings. Believe me it is a breath of fresh fucking air in this smog of an industry. I give it a 5/5 skulls. Well it’s been fun guys. I’ll be writing some more shit soon but until then… See you in the mosh!!!!

Check out Anthrax now on tour.

Reported By: Clash The Impaler