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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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 tells me that Dave Mustaine has released yet another of those bizarrely cryptic messages (No, I’m not going to make the obvious joke) he digs so much:

“Today is the 9th of April and I have agreed to doing something last night that I am sure a lot of people are going to be very excited about, and something that I had hoped would one day lead to another one of the potential feuds going away for good, if not for a long while.

“I can’t confirm the band or the dates yet, and I have to go get my youngster up for school. Rest assured, as soon as we are ready to announce it, you will be one of the first to know.”

Man, Mustaine loves his teases, don’t he?

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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

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