HISTORY
Anthrax, named after a a deadly virus and was part of the ''Big Four'' which also included very successful bands as
Megadeth,
Slayer and
Metallica during the mid 80's.
Anthrax played at the beginning speed/thrash-metal, the band maybe wasen't as heavy as the other bands but
Anthrax did have some of their own tricks. This band had way more talented singers than the others, the guitar work was nearly lightning fast and the they were not as dead serious in their song writing.
Slayer focused more on the satanic themes, the other two bands focused on various different things but
Anthrax was a bit different. They were serious in some of their material but they included more humor in their song writing.
Anthrax became one of the leading bands in the actual speed-metal genre during the 80's, but when the 90's came the band started to experiment with their sound. A very well-known example was the mix of hip-hop
ALBUM INFORMATION
This album is called
''Armed And Dangerous'' and this was the first album with the bands new singer
Joey Belladonna. The album does not have many songs, there are both studio songs, a
Sex Pistols cover and some live tracks as well. Maybe not one of the bands most successful albums but it was still a good piece of entertainment, both vocally and instrumentally. Most of the material is quite catchy and songs like
Metal Thrashing Mad and
Panic are a bit more improved with
Belladonna as the new vocalist. The band also got a new bass player called
Frank Bello, he replaced the former bassist
Danny Lilker who formed
Nuclear Assault which also became a successfyl thrash-metal band.
BAND MEMBERS
This album was made by a group of five and the members who made this album were
Joey Belladonna as the new vocalist.
Joey's performance was though better than the former singer called
Neil Turbin in my opinion,
Neil was though also a good vocalist but he didn't have the same vocal range as
Joey had.
Joey delivers singing of very good quality, maybe not on every song but these are vocals that you will remember.
Scott Ian and
Dan Spitz are very good guitarists, from fast and energetic soloing to shredd fests. Most of the guitar work is loaded with energy, there are quite many catchy moments and the complexity in the songs is not overdone or too simple.
Frank Bello was also a new member in the band,
Frank became responsible for the bass and he does a great job on this album. His bass is audible, not as loud as
Overkill's bassist
D.D Verni but it is still good, there are not any special standout performances from
Frank but he does a good job to create a steady rhythm section.
Charlie Benante is the drummer in this band, one of the better drummers at the time and still is today.
Charlie's drum work is filled with energy, precision and heavy beats. The drum patterns are though not complicated or highly advanced but it is still very enjoyable to listen at.
MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS ALBUM
Well, where should I start, we begin with the new member
Joey Belladonna. Probably one of the best or at least better singers in the thrash-metal genre, though there was also other talented vocalists like
Heathen's Dave Godfrey,
Testament's Chuck Billy and
Death Angel's Mark Osegueda for example. I thought that
Joey was a great replacement for
Anthrax, the band got a whole different sound that attracted more people and took the band to newer levels in their career. This was almost like an american counter part to England's
Iron Maiden in my opinion. If you have heard the material on their first album
''Fistful Of Metal'' you can imagine who this might sound like, songs like
Panic and
Soldiers Of Metal sounds almost exactly like the original recordings except for the new vocals. But the songs still has the same edge and fire as they had in their debut album.
Armed And Dangerous and
Raise Hell were also good-quality songs, both of them had a good song pattern which was catchy and heavy. There was energy in the songs, nothing felt sloppy or someting like that, the only thing that felt a bit tedious was the long intro on the opening track but the rest was great.
This album was not flawless though, take songs like the
Sex Pistols cover called
God Save The Queen, the whole song felt sluggish and boring.
Joey's vocals felt a bit arrogant and the overall attitude in the vocals made the song uninteresting. Another thing I felt was bad was the small amount of songs, well, seven tracks would classify this as an album but I thought this should be called an EP. All of the songs were mixed with both live recordings where
Joey sings songs from the first album, there was just three new songs if you include the the cover song, the material was good but if there was more ''new stuff'' on the album it would've been a more interesting album in my opinion.
MY CONCLUSION
Everything that
Anthrax has made with
Joey Belladonna is great in my opinion, I dig most of their work except when they had
John Bush as vocalist. This album was pretty good, but not flawless as I told you. I didn't like the cover song at all and I didn't liked the ''old'' songs with the new vocals in particular, the new songs on this album was very good and with
Belladonna as new vocalist made this even better. If you are a fan of
Anthrax you should check this one out, thrashers should check this out too but if you are looking for some extreme stuff you might or will find this uninteresting. Now I'm done for this time and I hope this was a good guidance, if you got critics of any kind just give them to me.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS
-- Metal Thrashing Mad
-- Armed And Dangerous
-- Panic
-- Raise Hell
Because of the decent vareity among the songs and the new band members, this album will be given a 3.5/5
