WORSHIP MUSIC IS THE NEW CHINESE DEMOCRACY
Friday, November 20th, 2009 at 1:00pm by Axl Rosenberg
Obviously, my headline is a little sensationalistic. We waited a decade and a half for Chinese Democracy; it’s only been six (almost seven) years since the last Anthrax studio album, We’ve Come for You All. And wile CD apparently cost somewhere in neighborhood of $13 million dollars… well, I don’t know what the budget was/is on Worship Music, but I’m guessing Anthrax wouldn’t know $13 million dollars if it pooped in their eye.
Still, Chinese Democracy – which was finally released almost exactly one year ago – is the closest corollary I can think of to Worship Music, which is starting to reach mythological status.
Think about it: like Chinese Democracy, this is the heavily-anticipated “comeback” album of the latest incarnation of a once-respected band; like Chinese Democracy, there’s been a substantial about of controversy over the comings and goings of key members of the group; and like Chinese Democracy, a handful of not-great-quality live bootlegs are really all we have to go by when judging the music. A number of people who have had the privilege of hearing the album have told me that’s it awesome, but I haven’t gotten to hear it myself, and my guess is I won’t until someone leaks it (And I’m convinced that, at some point, someone will leak it – it’s just a matter of time.).
So there’s all these murmurs and wondering if/when Worship Music will ever come out and who will actually be on it if/when it ever comes out, and yadda yadda yadda. We’re already reaching a point where no one is going to be able to give this album a fair shake. Finding an impartial listener for Worship Music will about as easy as finding an impartial jury for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed’s trial. It’s just not gonna happen.
So here are the aforementioned shitty live bootlegs. I think we’ve posted most of these before, but, hey, they’re worth obsessing over a little more. It sounds to me like the band was trying to please everybody – e.g., strike a balance between the thrashier Belladonna-stuff and the groovier Bush-stuff – but it’s hard to judge just from these clips.
“Earth on Hell”
“Vampyres”
“Revolution Screams”
“Fight ‘Em ‘Til You Can’t Fight No More”
“New Noise” (Refused Cover)
-AR
Bad corollary; bad analogy. Now, if Joey Belladonna or John Bush systematically kicked every single member of the band out, and then hired and subsequently fired (repeat twice) their replacements for 14 years, and then finally released an album with musician credits that look more like an Encyclopedia, and then went on tour with yet another set of cover musicians…NOW you have your analogy.
I think Testament’s new album would be a better analogy. What was it, 9 years? Jesus…at least it was good.
2nd Best release of last year!
The Formation of Damnation is, indeed, awesome.
god damn that refused cover was fucking terrible.
Actually I don’t give too much of a fuck about Anthrax, so I guess I’m impartial.
@ the signin here in nyc they said its comin out in the summer and john is a member of anthrax and he will record the vocals on it
If you’re looking for a comparison based on actual time worked on it, I think Wintersun’s TIME is approaching 6 years of work being done on it.
haha, i was just typing that out and just happened to notice your comment. the only difference is that time will probably be worth the effort.