THE ANTHRAX SAGA CONTINUES!

So. If you’re just joining us, here’s the story thus far: Anthrax decided to do a reunion tour with Joey Belladonna, but when they got off the road everyone in the band came to their senses and was like, “Wait, what? We’re not making an album with Joey Belladonna!” But John Bush was all, “You can’t fuck another girl and then ask me to the prom,” so Anthrax needed to get a new singer. They hired this dude no one has ever heard of named Dan Nelson and recorded a new album, Worship Music, which they assured us was going to be the second-coming. But then all of sudden Nelson was out of the band, either because he quit or was fired, depending on who you believe. And then they got John Bush to agree to tour with them again. And now everyone is all, “Is Bush in the band or what?” and Anthrax is all “Fingers crossed!”, which isn’t very reassuring.

On top of all of this, it has now been six and half years since the release of Anthrax’s last album, We’ve Come for You All. The last time anyone waited this long for a new record by an allegedly not-defunct band, it was Chinese Democracy.

Difference is, we finally got to hear Chinese Democracy, and now it looks like we’ll probably never hear Worship Music - at least, not in any official capacity.

See, up ’til now, the assumption has been that if John Bush does re-join Anthrax, he’ll just re-record Nelson’s Worship vocals and the album will be released. But not so, says Scott Ian. From a recent radio interview:

“It wouldn’t be a case at this point of John just coming in and re-singing the record. That’s not going to happen. If John sings on this album, then we’re going to go back in and re-write because John Bush would then be committing to it and we would go back in and re-write stuff the way we did just like Sound of White Noise or Stomp 442 or We’ve Come For You All. That’s how it would have to be, so we’re just kind of in a standby mode waiting to see how John feels about it and what he wants to do.

This decision actually makes complete sense to me; if Bush didn’t just wanna fill Belladonna’s shoes (again), he’s certainly not just gonna wanna parrot the kid who replaced him.

But this means yet another delay until we get a new Anthrax album – ’cause the band hasn’t even started writing one yet. On top of which, come hell or high water Bush is on the new Armored Saint album coming out this year, and I’d wager that if he wants to go tour with them before starting work with the ‘Thrax, he can make that happen – ’cause, really, what choice does Anthrax have at this point? Get back together with Belladonna again? Hire another new singer? Gimme a break.

So did the chances of a new Anthrax album in 2010 just fly right out the window?

Just as big of a bummer might be that I’ve spoken to several people who actually got to hear Worship Music, and they all swear it’s fantastic. These aren’t even necessarily people who work with the band – they had nothing personal at stake. I can’t believe the band has done this good job of making sure the record doesn’t leak, but now it’s certain to attain cult status amongst Anthrax fans as “the album that almost was.” In other words, I really think it’s gonna find its way out into the world sooner or later.

And since I have no real way to end this post, I’d like to posit the following question: can Anthrax really afford to just throw away an entire album? How much did that cost the band?

-AR