bill bodkin looks at the first new single in close to a decade from the thrash metal icons …
If you’re a fan of the band Anthrax, it has been an extremely frustrating eight years. Since 2003, when the band released their phenomenal album We’ve Come For You All, the band has seen so much tumult. John Bush stepped down from behind the microphone as lead singer — truly a travesty in my opinion, as Bush’s punishing vocals were the perfect compliment to the band’s new style of aggressive metal. Then they recorded a brand new album with a new frontman, Dan Nelson — who the band split with after the record’s completion causing it to never seen the light of day. Then they reunited with their original lead singer, Joey Belladonna, and toured extensively — seemingly only in Europe.(OK, they played the states, but nothing close to my area in New Jersey. Hey, I can be frustrated!]
As an East Coast fan of Anthrax, I would often look to the metal gods, a fistful of metal in the air and yell, “When will Anthrax give us new music?!”
Today, my lamentations were answered.
On Anthrax’s official website you can download their single “Fight ‘Em ‘Til You Can’t,” which will be part of their new album Worship Music [to be released in September].
The song which talks about the living battling a zombie is metal perfection. It’s an amazing hybrid of the muscular, punishing metal that the band has crafted on such masterworks like Volume 8: The Threat Is Real! and We’ve Come For You All and the sublime 80s metal screaming, hellbent for leather sound they produced in the ’80s when Belladonna originally fronted the band.
The song features all the ‘Thrax classicsL Charlie Benante’s double kick bass drum, killer guitar work from Scott Ian and Rob Caggiano and, of course, the thundering, 100 mph bass backbone provided by Frank Bello. And lyrically? The band fighting the living dead is just fantastic. It’s like a warm blanket of chain mail wrapped around you saying, “Yes, Anthrax is back and with a vengeance.”
In short, this song is full horns in the air, headbanging pure rock fury. It’s the absolutely the perfect song for the band to release to its audience after a near decade of chomping at the bit for new music. This track makes me nearly jump out of my skin with excitement at how good Worship Music is going to be.
Until then, this song will be my new summer anthem.
Rock on Anthrax. m/
