Worship Music - Anthrax

Anthrax has always been the runt of the big four. In truth they seem more comparable to Testament than to say Megadeth. And their placement in the big four sort of seems like its only to represent the East Coast thrash metal scene, one that has always been overshadowed by the West Coast. So if this review seems biased that’s because it probably is. I’ve never been a big fan of Anthrax. In my book they hardly qualify as thrash and are more on par with the sound of Metal Church or Sacred Reich. But I do like the classics, by which I mean Among the Living and Fistful of Metal. I’ve never been able to really get into the John Bush or Dan Nelson stuff.

With that said their new album has been getting a lot of praise and right off the bat I have to say that it’s good to see that Joey Belladonna is back. It’s sort of like Bruce Dickinson coming back to Iron Maiden or Rob Halford rejoining Judas Priest. He just belongs with Anthrax and without him it hardly feels like Anthrax.

But Worship Music was clearly written for a different singer. The geniuses over at That Metal Show would have you believe otherwise and insisted when they talked to Scott Ian and Charlie Benante that this was “your best album ever”. I was shocked when I heard this. I have disagreed with those three many times but not only is Worship Music not Anthrax’s best album it’s really not even a good album. It’s probably mediocre at best.

This album has been a long time in the works and I can’t help but get the same feeling I had when I first heard Chinese Democracy. But Chinese Democracy was a colossal failure and Worship Music is more of just a feeble attempt. All to often here the music simply sounds uninspired (see “The Devil You Know”). Plus there is nary a song that really comes close to thrash. It’s somewhere between new style heavy metal and sort of Pantera groove metal. It just doesn’t work for this band and certainly not this singer. I did like “In the End” however. It has a nice epic feel to it. But that’s really just one small shining spot on an otherwise fairly muddled attempt.

So my advice for Anthrax is to skip the tour and go right back into the studio. Guys remember that you have Belladonna back. Stop recording like you still have John Bush. And also make this more thrashy. Live up to your place in the big four.