Review Summary: Sound of White Noise is pure aggressive perfection.
John Bush, the ridiculously gruff Armored Saint alumni, seemed an odd replacement for the flamboyant-voiced Joey Belladonna (Whose name reminds me of a mix of "ballerina" and "prima donna"), but after the display put on the rock-tinged, square-waved
Sound of White Noise, it was an obvious change for the better.
Coming out in 1993, the influence of Metallica's self-titled had already seeped in to the veteran thrash stalwarts, as it did just about everyone else at the time; But with skill and a flair for songwriting they haven't been able to match since, Anthrax turned
Sound of White Noise from another commercial grab from a mainstream metal act trying to keep a grip on the industry into a finely tuned eight-cylinder engine of pure metal aggression. From the circular groove of album opener "Potter's Field" to the ramping-up intensity of "This Is Not an Exit", the California five-piece constructed a textured, high-octane romp that straddled the lines of hard rock, grunge, and thrash with the dexterity of a grand pianist. This is truly a one-of-a-kind album, lined with dirty leads, saturated riffs, and skull-crush grooves.
Production from Anthrax's previous tinny, high-gain efforts were night and day: Alice In Chains producer Dave Jerden helped the band sculpt a moody, dark atmosphere to an already violent album. The strumming riffs of "Only" are thick and powerful, and the palm muted chugga-chug of "Room for One More" is just absolutely killer. "Black Lodge", a ballad in the same way that Natural Born Killers was a love story, is a sickly dark effort, haunting classic vibrato guitar sweeps and a low-tune melody that always seems to lurk beneath the murky surface, followed by as wispy a verse as you'll squeeze out of Anthrax. "C11H17N2O2S Na", the chemical formula for sodium pentathol (truth serum), is a punky affair that dips low into the heavy and spasmodic riffs. I could go on for days what makes each song kick ass, but let's just nip this one in the bud and say that even the weak points of the album ("Burst", "Packaged Rebellion") offer up some good stuff. The material here is strong from start to finish, and the fact that it fluctuates simply from good to brilliant is an indication of such.
All performances from all sides are tight, as is to be expected from this band after
Persistence of Time, but the ridiculous variety of chords and soundscapes extracted out by bassist Frank Bello and well-known nutcase Scott Ian are simply unreal. From the door-slamming, boot-stomp chug of "Invisible" to the frenetics of "Burst", every song manages it's own texture and identity while keeping within the central gritty themes of distrust and paranoia this record seems to exude. The fuzzed out guitars lack the heft and chunk of their brethren in Metallica at the time, but more than make up for it with it's emotional libration. The drums are precise and a bit groove oriented, and I've heard few albums blend together all of the instruments so well as to create a sonic force, as opposed to simply a good mix. When Anthrax brings the heavy, it's the wall of noise turned to eleven. "Vicious" is an appropriate descriptor.
Almost two decades later,
Sound of White Noise stands alone in both the Anthrax discography and the history of metal. It's a unique experience that may surprise a few people, and even the band themselves couldn't duplicate this masterpiece. It straddled the line of the past and the present, successfully, and from the chaos and dust settled an album of timeless quality that is neither rock, nor metal, nor grunge, nor some cheap crossover. It's pure aggressive metal perfection.
