Review Summary: Scratches the itch without sounding cheap or forced
Cursum Perficio sounds like the new Anthrax trying to play some of the old Anthrax. And, surprisingly enough, it works pretty damn well.
There is plenty here that immediately sounds familiar: melodic hooks, catchy choruses, aggressive thrash riffs and some hardcore throwbacks to the band's past. Then you get the occasional surprise, like the almost-blast beat appearing on The Edge of Perfection. Anthrax are obviously not trying to pretend it is 1987 again, but there are several moments where the older character of the band comes crawling back into the room.
Everybody's Got a Plan is probably one of the clearest examples. It has that melodic, immediately recognizable Anthrax quality without sounding like a cheap attempt at nostalgia. NYC93 goes even further in that direction, and the hardcore influence is impossible to miss. More importantly, the band actually sounds like they are enjoying themselves on this one. There is an energy to the song that feels natural rather than calculated, like five guys remembered for a few minutes why playing this kind of music was fun in the first place.
It's for the Kids is another very enjoyable track, while the title track is probably one of the most interesting songs on the record. Cursum Perficio has a very nice guitar line and builds itself up gradually instead of immediately throwing everything at the listener. At over six minutes it could easily have become tedious, but it doesn't. The song develops enough to justify its length, which unfortunately cannot be said about everything here.
Infectious, for example, starts very strong but eventually drags on longer than it needs to. There is a good song in there, it just doesn't know when to leave the party. The Long Goodbye is also a strange choice near the beginning of the record. It is perfectly decent, but little more than that, and certainly not the song I would have chosen to properly kick the album into motion.
T.O.M.B. (Target on My Back) has a different problem. It works while the album is playing, but it fails the replayability test. After the record ends, there is very little pulling me back toward it. Watch It Go on the other hand, is probably the only track I would actually call weak.
The production doesn't always help.
The guitars have a crunchy, aggressive sound and Belladonna's vocals are in remarkably good shape. He has aged well as a singer and still sounds convincing rather than like someone desperately trying to reproduce a voice he had forty years ago. Frank Bello's bass is also reasonably audible, which already puts Cursum Perficio ahead of an alarming number of modern records by the old thrash giants.
The drums are where things become more questionable. The overheads, snare and cymbals sometimes take too much space and cover the other instruments, while the bass drum could use considerably more presence. The result isn't disastrous by any means, but the mix occasionally works against music that should hit harder than it does. On a record this energetic, that is a particularly annoying problem.
Still, the production problems never manage to kill the album.
Cursum Perficio is well played, energetic and surprisingly fun. It has enough melody to keep the songs memorable, enough aggression to prevent the record from becoming harmless, and enough references to Anthrax's hardcore and thrash past to give it some personality. More importantly, most of the songs actually make me want to hear them again.
I would put it slightly above both Worship Music and For All Kings. Among the recent records released by the surviving thrash titans, for me it sits roughly alongside the latest Megadeth: not as good as the latest Testament, but clearly more enjoyable than the latest Metallica and especially the latest Exodus.
The rating is therefore slightly annoying. 4/5 feels a little generous, but 3.5/5 would be too low. If I could give it 3.75, that is probably where it would land. Since I can't, Anthrax get the benefit of the doubt.
