Anthrax- For All Kings (2016)

Anthrax- For All Kings (2016)

By: Ghost Writer

On album's opener You Gotta Believe, New York's mighty mosh kings Anthrax sound as tight and bloody as Slayer used to sound in the old days, the song in particular is a great return to the days of the heavy bottomed The Persistence of Time, For All Kings sounds just as heavy, dark and intense, with heavy melodic undertones in songs like the wonderful swagger of Monster at the End that sounds as the perfect musical evolution towards accessibility that Metallica never were able to make, the title track, on the other side goes for a more Iron Maiden like epic but without losing its muscle in big part thanks to Charlie Benante superb drumming and Joey Belladonna´s always melodic expertise.

Anthrax is the kind of band you can't count out, they are always willing to take big risks, to make mistakes and learn from them, and to constantly reinvent themselves, they surely know they have the talent to get triumphant no matter how dark the future looks, from their early days as a band making the big fusion between heavy metal with hardcore punk, then igniting the rap metal trend and disposing their classic singer in order to experiment with alternative metal, Anthrax have done all this, and even returning to their classic line up without losing a bit of their original appeal, smarter than their contemporary thrash metal cohorts, Anthrax is the kind of bad destined to handle the “classic” tag.

Breathing Lightning, just as its name let us catch our breath and prepare us for Ian and Donais barrage of heavy moshing riffs, it's classic Anthrax territory without a doubt, with Belladonna singing like a possessed in perfect synchrony with the rest of the band, it will leave some of the audience astonished with some of the most beautiful and delicate sounds ever on an Anthrax record, but the bad simply doesn't care, as Suzerain brings back the brutal riffing and the complex rhythms, and important here to also mention newcomer Jon Donais impressive soloing here.

Pure thrash metal is what we get on Evil Twin, where the magic of the band is put to immediate use, the band taking really complex routes that put them immediately on Megadeth´s school of tech thrash, the band is merciless on its approach, with Belladonna given here a stellar performance from start to finish.

Defend Avenge and All of Them Thieves are brutal examples of the band never losing form, introducing really interesting ideas into their already volatile mix, even tossing at us as something close to classic metal with This Battle Chose Us and then jumping to intense hardcore punk on the aptly titled Zero Tolerance.

For All Kings is a proper return to form for one of the greatest metal bands ever, is heavy as expected and smart as we always wished, Anthrax smells classic band all over, I have no doubt that generations will look at them just as we see Zeppelin, Sabbath or Purple.