Live 4 Metal - Metal Myth Busting

Anthrax are easily the most forgotten of the original “big four” of thrash. Their legacy has been pretty much consigned to being the band that used to wear Bermuda shorts and shout “Not!” during their songs. This belies much of their early work, albums of surprising quality and sophistication, yet are very rarely given the kudos that they deserve.

Their first album, the charming “Fistful of Metal”, with the eminently likeable Neil Turbin, was a strong enough, if not incendiary slab of proto-thrash. From there on in, with their full length LP’s with Joey Belladonna, the New York based act went from strength to strength, producing ever more addictive, pure heavy metal-tinged thrash tracks that featured the artful drumming of Charlie Benante, the rhythm crunch of riff-meister Scott Ian and the soaring clean vocals of Joey Belladonna. These albums saw them performing to enormo-domes, with the requisite huge stage props of the times. The band were riding high on the back of their dark, almost progressive platter, “Persistence of Time”.

So why didn’t we see Anthrax ascend to the same levels of their peers in Slayer, Megadeth and Metallica? Arguably, Exodus, Testament and Sepultura command much more respect from the hardcore thrash fans than Anthrax. This despite the fact that in the early nineties, Anthrax were the first out of the gate to modernise their sound against the brief onslaught of grunge (which I have already talked about in a previous metal myth busting). Bringing in former Armored Saint vocalist John Bush, a tremendous stage worker and powerful vocalist to help transform their image, Belladonna was jettisoned, one suspects, for his die hard metal appearance. He had a high, tuneful voice, a somewhat goofy and optimistic stage persona much more in the vein of Bruce Dickinson than Eddie Vedder. John Bush was a darker, more traditionally charismatic character. With Bush at the helm, the band would go on to record “The Sound of White Noise”, a great album with an embarrassment of riches, complete with the insanely addictive opening single, “Only”.

Alas, things didn’t last. Dan Spitz left shortly after, disillusioned with the manner in which Belladonna was fired, left to wander the heavy metal wasteland, performing old Anthrax tracks and releasing solo albums which were scarcely promoted, let alone bought. Anthrax went on, releasing “Stomp 442”, a decent enough alternative metal album that largely eschewed the thrash of old in place of a more mainstream rock influenced sound, and aside from “Fueled” struggled to find memorable numbers.

“Volume 8” fared even less well, sounding like an unlikely mish-mash of Pantera worship, trend hopping rock numbers and tedious acoustic numbers. Now largely forgotten, this album almost buried the band, unadvertised and mostly unsought. Although still a potent live force, the light in the songwriting fires had gone out. “We’ve Come For You All”, the band’s 2003 comeback on Nuclear Blast was a much better album – even hinting at old glories, half filled with great new tracks buried among the rest, which were merely adequate rock numbers. They even had the cheek to re-record old Belladonna tracks with Bush and call it (insultingly) “The Greater of Two Evils”. Ironically, it wasn’t long until the band hopped onto the reunion band wagon, reuniting with Spitz and Belladonna for crowd pleasing runs of their old material. The meeting with Belladonna on the resultant “Alive” DVD being one of the most excruciatingly insincere moments ever committed to the viewing public. Bush was assumingly insulted, and left the band.

So why did the band (which, to a lesser or larger extent we can rule to be Benante and Ian) pursue this hair brained scheme? Especially if there was no long term plan to record with Belladonna? Who knows. The cynical will point towards cool, hard cash – though from their glory years, you would have thought there was enough of that still sloshing around. I tend to think because the band had always had a way of doing rather than thinking or planning. Take, for instance, “Attack of the Killer B’s”, a shoddy motley collection of cover versions, live numbers and B sides. A waste of time, in short. Let’s not forget (if only we could), the “Bring the Noise” fiasco, or the “I’m the Man” rap singles.

After a further singer jettisoned (Dan Nelson, who either was or wasn’t so ill he had to be fired, dependant on whether you ask the band or Nelson himself), the band were without a singer and have a whole album recorded, but apparently in release limbo. Until very recently (May 10th), even John Bush didn’t know what was going on, but thought that he might be re-recording some of the songs from the unreleased album. Certainly, popular opinion had it that he was the most popular choice of singer. Yet, for all that (and Belladonna has since been confirmed as the new ...erm...old...new ? Hell, I give up) singer for Anthrax. Personally, I like both eras of Anthrax, but I don’t think that Bush is right for them at this point. He had an incredible stage presence, but the sell out gigs on the Among the Living reunion tour told their own story. Belladonna represented Anthrax at their purest, before outside influences turned them from an unmissable thrash act to a less memorable rock band. Either way, I wish both singers luck – life in the Anthrax camp hasn’t been the most stable of places to be, and who knows which of them will be singing for them next year?