GETTING STOKED ON SEEING ANTHRAX LIVE

Axl and Anso are working on something very special surrounding the release of Anthrax’s forever-in-the-works Worship Music, which comes out tomorrow after 8 painstaking years of writing, recording, hiring new singers and firing old ones (and re-hiring old ones again, multiple times), re-recording, and, for us, waiting. But it’s finally here. I’ll leave the critical analysis for Axl and Anso, but here’s my two cents about the album in a nutshell: it rocks.

Worship Music rocks so much, in fact, that I’m attending tonight’s “secret” Anthrax show at the Best Buy theater in NYC mainly because I want to hear the band perform the new stuff live. When’s the last time you went to see Metallica, Megadeth or Slayer hoping to see them perform new shit? My guess is you haven’t because “new shit” is synonymous with “bathroom break” ’round those parts, especially if you’re under the age of 30. But Anthrax, no doubt because of their underdog status as #4 of the Big 4, still have the fire, still have the passion, still have something to prove, and the new songs prove that. This performance of “The Devil You Know” on Jimmy Fallon’s late night TV joint shows that they still got it and that they’re pumped to be where they are. The mix is absolute shit but Belladonna sounds good… most importantly, the energy is all there.

-VN

[via Metal Insider]