MetalSucks

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.

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Dan Nelson is already a legend, and not necessarily in a good way. Like Gary Cherone or Blaze Bailey, he’s going to go down in history as a dude who was hired to be the new singer for a well-known band, only to get the boot fairly quickly; unlike Cherone of Bailey, the work he did with this particular well-known band will either never see the light of day, or slip out only as a bootleg. A fairly limited number of ‘Thrax fans ever got to see him perform live with the band, so really there’s only a small part of the population that has any sense of what his contributions may have been, positive or negative.

But Nelson is from Strong Island, and ain’t gonna let no Scott Ian or Charlie Bananas get him down. According to Metal Underground, Nelson has started a new project with drummer Paul Bostaph.

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UPDATE: Directly from Megaforce: “No truth to it.” Sorry, kids.

Reader Greg Heerdt has helpfully pointed out that Amazon is now listing an October 20, 2009 release date for Anthrax’s Worship Music (or, at least, some import version of Worship Music - the previously announced European release date was October 23). I’ve reached out to the band’s label, Megaforce, to see if there’s any truth to the date or not…

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Right after John Bush played what might or might not be a one-off reunion show with Anthrax, I wrote, “I’d love to post some footage of Bush performing a Bush-era song, but can’t seem to find any.” Well, the metal gods heard my prayers, and SMN News posted the below footage of the band doing “Safe Home.” And the quality of the footage is actually perfect – it’s not just some shit a fan captured on his or her cell phone! Band sounds good, too.

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CORRECTION: PRATO’S QUESTION COMES FROM HERE. MY APOLOGIES TO PRATO. NO APOLOGIES TO MUSTAINE.THANKS TO BORIVOJ AT BLABBERMOUTH FOR SHOWING ME THE ERROR OF MY WAYS.

It has been a fantastic summer for feuds. Just, really top notch. Isis is mad at Revolver and I’m fairly certain that Revolver is mad at MetalSucks. Fear Factory would be like the new Van Halen, if Van Halen wasn’t still the new Van Halen. And I think it’s safe to say at this point that, pretty much no matter how this whole Dan Nelson/John Bush drama plays out, no one will ever take Anthrax seriously again (assuming they were still taking Anthrax seriously at all).

And now this. Ladies and gentleman, key founding members of three of the Big Four are now all ready to throw down. This is a clusterfuck of epic proportions. I wish you could all see my face right now, ’cause rarely am I this happy.

It’s a long story, and, as is so often the case, I am really just playing The Daily Show to Blabbermouth’s CNN. Here we go:

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I’ve gotten a few e-mails today from people asking me where Vince is. Well, the truth is, Vince can’t write because he’s ill. And he’s quitting the site. No, really, he quit. We didn’t fire him. Swear it. We stand by that statement.

Here’s some other shit that happened in the world of metal this week:

• We’ve heard the new Alice in Chains album, and it is good.
• Gwar’s Oderus Urungus answered some of your questions, and will answer more in the future.
• John Bush is coming back to Anthrax because Dan Nelson quit. Oh, wait, no he didn’t. Yes he did. He probably didn’t, though.
• We spoke with Poison the Well’s Ryan Primack and Sunn O)))’s Greg Anderson.
• We checked out the latest releases from He Is Legend, Magrudergrind, Novembers Doom, and Clutch.
• Unfortunately, the 10th Annual Gathering of the Juggalos really is a real thing.
• Baby-eater Dino Cazares must be stopped!!!

Alright. Time to go buy a vaporizer of my very own. See ya Monday.

-AR

Some of you may already be sick of all this Anthrax nonsense, but I am not. In fact, it is entirely possible that I am enjoying even more than I am enjoying the Fear Factory drama. Probably because I actually care about Anthrax.

So. Reader Aleksander Sobecki sent us a link to this inteview with Scott Ian from Metal Hammer. I’m going to do very little editing to the actual text because it’s all pretty fun to read. I will, however, include my analysis after each chunk of text.

And away we go…

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Doesn’t Scott Ian seem like a really swell dude when you see him on TV? He’s not Lars Ulrich, who comes off as such a prick that when you hear he really is a prick you go, “Yeah, that makes sense.” If my only knowledge of Scott Ian was his VH1 appearances, though, I’d wanna invite the guy to my place to my Passover sedar.

But then you hear these stories that make you smack your forehead, like, say, suddenly inviting Joey Belladonna and Dan Spitz back to the band after the artistic (if not financial) triumph of We’ve Come for You All, and suddenly Ian – and his bandmates, for that matter – don’t seem like such nice fellas. To wit, this statement from Dan Nelson on his unceremonious departure from Anthrax: Click to read more…

Blabbermouth just got the following statement from Anthrax’s manager:

“As announced last week, thrash legends ANTHRAX regretfully cancelled the first three dates on the second leg of their European tour due to new vocalist Dan Nelson’s unexpected illness. An additional seven European dates are also cancelled, those scheduled from July 22 to July 30.

“ANTHRAX is thrilled to announce that they will play the August 1 Sonisphere festival in Knebworth, England, with their good friend John Bush [ANTHRAX's singer from 1992 to 2005] joining them for a very special one-off performance.

“The members of ANTHRAX have confirmed the departure of vocalist Dan Nelson. In light of this development, ANTHRAX’s slot on the U.S. SLIPKNOT dates set for August and September, has also been cancelled. ANTHRAX is already actively considering lead singer candidates, and looks forward to hitting the road before the end of the year.”

On behalf of Vince and all the other Bushtrax fans out there who never wanted John out of the band in the first place, I would just like to say:

PLEASE JOHN BUSH RETURN TO THE BAND ON A FULL-TIME BASIS. PLEASE JOHN BUSH RETURN TO THE BAND ON A FULL-TIME BASIS. PLEASE JOHN BUSH RETURN TO THE BAND ON A FULL-TIME BASIS. PLEASE JOHN BUSH RETURN TO THE BAND ON A FULL-TIME BASIS. PLEASE JOHN BUSH RETURN TO THE BAND ON A FULL-TIME BASIS.

Here’s the video for “Safe Home.” Yes, that is Keanu. Go figure.

-AR

Vince and I were this close to going to see the latest incarnation of Anthrax play last night at some Red Bull snowboarding event. It didn’t quite work out, and knowing now that I would have been freezing my nuts off watching the band play in the coldest fucking weather imaginable, I can’t say I’m exactly filled with regret.

Luckily, Blabbermouth has some video footage of the event – including a performance of “Bring the Noise” with Public Enemy’s Chuck D – so I can at least get a sense of what we missed. The band seems lively enough and this Dan Nelson fellow seems fit for the job, so really, I just have one question: what the fuck is going on with Rob Caggiano?

-AR

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: We’ve Come for You All is the best Anthrax album. Belladonnanthrax had a lot (I mean, a LOT) of classic tunes, but Belladonna was kind of a tool. Was that group anyone’s favorite thrash band?* They grew as musicians and songwriters when they started to introduce more classic hard rock elements into their music, and they certainly got heavier. And WCFYA was the ultimate representation of theses facts.

So. I’d almost forgotten that Anthrax have a new album coming out, because it seems like it’s been so long since there’s been much movement on them. But now the album has a name, Worship Music, and a tentative June release date. Here are some random preliminary thoughts:

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Last night I had a dream in which a car full of people including Axl and I were headed to some big outdoor music festival. In typical dream fashion I’d forgotten that Anthrax would be on the bill, but upon remembering so — and furthermore that John Bush would be singing with the band — my balls started to tingle. I was excited; in dreamy-dream land, I’d never seen Anthrax! (in reality, I have). In dreamy-dream land, I’d never seen Anthrax with John Bush! (this is true). What an awesome festival this was going to be, indeed!

Then I woke up. At least there’s always YouTube. But I can keep dreaming for the day John Bush rejoins Anthrax.

Speaking of which, what the hell is Anthrax up to? Several months ago they were all over the webernet about recording in Chicago with new singer Dan Nelson. That was, like, six months ago. What up, dudes? Less cell-phone videos of Scott Ian and more music, plz ok thx!

-VN

Low quality, crappy fan-recordings of Anthrax performing three new songs in Chicago in May have surfaced, and can be heard below. I don’t know how long we’ll be able to keep ‘em up before the Anthrax Attorney intervenes, so enjoy ‘em while you can.

It’s still really hard to tell very much about these songs based on these clips, but I will go on record right now as saying that i) new vocalist Dan Nelson sounds pretty fuckin’ good and ii) “Vampyres” is my personal favorite of the three (at least, based on these bootlegs).

Feel free to argue amongst yourselves.

“Fight ‘Em Til You Can’t”:

“Revolution Screams”:

“Vampyres”:

[via Blabbermouth]

So Anthrax have been making the rounds with their new singer, Dan Nelson, and now some crappy cell phone footage of the re-jiggered band opening for Iron Maiden last week has popped up online (Needless to say, none of the footage is of any new songs, which the band played at some warm-up club gigs but not at the Maiden shows. Figures.). Of course, making a judgement about Nelson’s talents based on such terrible quality video and audio is totally unfair, but this is MetalSucks, not We Love Kittens, so fuck it. Watch the clips below and let us know what you think. Personally, I’m amazed how much the dude seems to sound like John Bush – especially on the Belladonna-era tracks. Go figure.

“MADHOUSE”

“ANTISOCIAL”

“ONLY”

-AR

Last night I heard the “new” Vader album, XXV, for the first time. In case you’re not hip to this release, it’s the Polish death metal masters’ 25th anniversary album, and is basically a greatest hits compilation – except that all the songs have been re-recorded with the band’s current line-up. Which, naturally, means that late drummer Krzysztof “Doc” Raczkowski appears nowhere on the album (or, at least, not in the audio content – I still don’t have a copy of the DVD which will accompany the disc’s release).

Of course, Vader aren’t the first band to embark upon such an endeavor. Living Colour, Twisted Sister, and even The Sex Pistols have all re-recorded some of their old songs for purpose of being able to license them without having to share the wealth with their former record labels, which is a brutal, and brutally honest, reason to re-visit your old catalogue. Dave Mustaine re-recorded “A Tout Le Monde” as a duet with Cristina Scabbia just last year; Anthrax re-recorded a bunch of old Joey Belladonna tunes with John Bush for their Greater of Two Evils* collection; hell, Dimmu Borgir re-recorded their entire album Stormblast because they were so unhappy with the original, and as I understand it, it’s only by the grace of God that we don’t have Appetite for Destruction 2000, featuring Axl Rose’s “revamped” GN’R in place of the original (although a half of a re-recorded “Sweet Child O’Mine” does roll over the closing credits of the Adam Sandler vehicle Big Daddy).

What, one has to wonder, is the point of re-recording all the band’s old songs?

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I know it’s completely unfair to to judge material based on brief, less-than-studio quality clips, but c’mon, this is MetalSucks. We don’t give a fuck about being fair.

So a few days ago there was a 30 second clip of a new Anthrax song, “Fight ‘Em ‘Till You Can’t Fight No More,” posted as the intro on their official website. It seems to be down now (maybe it didn’t exactly get the warmest response from the Blabbermutts)… it was not the greatest thing I’ve ever heard, although it definitely had potential; it had a very old-school thrash riff right out of the Belladona-era, but new vocalist Dan Nelson sounded decidedly more in the vein of John Bush. I hope the ‘Thrax keep in mind the old adage “You can’t please all the people all the time.” Still, this album has 4/5ths of the We’ve Come for You All line-up, so I choose to remain cautiously optimistic.

Meanwhile, there’s also a 30 second clip of a new Motley Crue tune, “The Saints of Los Angeles,” floating around the net. It sounds a lot like old Motley Crue, which means it’s already a hundred times better than “If I Die Tomorrow” or “Sick Love Song.” Below is a YouTube clip of the song; listen quickly before we get Motley Sued.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/LEmENjnxaNk" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

-AR

… and we’ve got it for ya. Anthrax officially announced via an online chat with fan club members last night that Dan Nelson will handle vocals on Anthrax’s forthcoming album. Audio of Nelson with his old band Devilsize has surfaced, but we’re not sure when this is from. The audio quality isn’t great and the band is, uh, way less than great, but it at least gives us an idea of what the guy sounds like. While I’m not sure I’m sold yet on Scott Ian’s claim that his voice is “Like John Bush on steroids,” I’m at least happy they recognized that they needed someone that had balls, someone that could sing Bush-era material. Belladonna? Please. Dude could sing but he doesn’t fit modern Anthrax, at all. Just based on this shitty demo I’m willing to give Dan Nelson a shot to be awesome.

Also, how cool is it that the members of Anthrax got in a friggin’ online chat room with their fans to make the announcement, instead of a lame press release?

Devilsize – “Taken”

-VN

Anthrax is strongly rumored (originally reported by Metal-Blast)to have recruited ex-Devilsize and ex-Me, My Enemy singer Dan Nelson as their new singer. Strangely, no one knows much about the guy; Me, My Enemy’s MySpace page had music up until Dec 4 but it has since been taken down. According to Metal-Blast, “Dan sounds quite a bit like John Bush and has even listed him as one of his primary vocal influences.”That, if you ask us, is a good thing. I swear that when I posted about John Bush this morning I had no idea about this.

Blabbermouth reports that pictures of Nelson with Devilsize can be found at this location, and that Nelson is supposedly the one long-haired member in the photos.

-VN