Photos by Brian Schroeter

The guys of Anthrax soon go to south and southeast Asia for a week of shows with Hellyeah [Update: These dates have been postponed -- ADF], but their current US run with Testament finished last week. Since the return of glory-era singer Joey Belladonna, the Anthrax world is a fishbowl to which I have pressed my face. So two Saturdays ago, it was time for me to tap on the glass and take notes. The questions: How does Belladonna sing and look? What’s the band body language? Do drummer Charlie Benante’s fills sound off? Has Scott Ian grown a better or worse beard? Can fans exhale a bit here with the firm knowledge that things are groovy for good in the land of Anthrax?

Click to read more…

Anthrax were playing at the Club Nokia in Los Angeles this past weekend when a fan jumped up on-stage, and a security guard who is also a major, major John Bush supporter decided to use said fan-on-stage as an excuse to tackle Joey Belladonna. Check out the video below; the incident in question happens at roughly the 1:36 mark.

Click to read more…

Holy shit, this is at least the second funniest thing I’ve seen all day. I have no idea where these old interviews are from or exactly what year they were conducted (I mean clearly it’s the early 90s sometime but I don’t know the precise dates or anything), but they are absolutely priceless, and definitely a must-watch. Highlights include:

• James Hetfield when he was still drunk, mean, and inarticulate.
• Scott Ian discussing offering to help a friend kill Joey Belladonna “and his chick and then bury them in one of his unused wells where they’ve been digging for water.” (Ian and Belladonna obviously get along much better now.)
• Kirk Hammett saying that if Dave Mustaine had never been fired from Metallica, “I would be playing with Megadeth… well, with better vocals, though. ‘Cause I can sing better than that guy.”
• Someone massacring a copy of So Far, So Good… So What? with a shotgun.
• Interviews with some of the smartest metal fans in the history of the genre.

Seriously, drop what you’re doing and watch this, you will not regret it.

-AR

Major props to Shane Gillis for sending this in!!!

We have successfully arrived at Yankee Stadium and are sitting in the press box. We feel so professional!

We’re gonna put the live blog after the jump so it doesn’t eat up the entire page. You’ll hafta refresh to get updates. Sorry.

And now, enjoy the snark…

Click to read more…

Photo by Clay Patrick McBride

Sebastian Bach’s new record is surprising and unsurprising. That is, no one who has witnessed the former Skid Row singer’s recent playdates with members of Asking Alexandria and Black Veil Brides could be shocked by Kicking And Screaming‘s slick, modern vibe. Plus, a clue was provided by each of Bach’s personnel moves, be it a 21-year old guitar prodigy, or a producer of tight radio rockers (Shinedown, Saliva) and lovable old guys (Iommi, David Lee Roth). And duh it’s 2011: For mainstream rock, the choice is big production or small potential. And there is nothing small about Sebastian Bach.

Anyway, those were my thoughts during the opening notes of Kicking And Screaming. But the album’s surprise element mounted with each song: He pulled it off! Yes, Bach is great at bright, pop-punkish hard rock throughout the totally lovable Kicking. Eventually it dawned on me that Bach might’ve been supplementing — not discarding — his OG fans via cavorting with scenebros, dissing of today’s Skid Row, and tabloid-friendly barroom antics. Via producer, boy wonder axeman, and his own snarling edge, his aim was a collection of jamz for both sensibilities and their overlap. Via classic Bach thrust and charm, Kicking is a Skid Row fan’s newest friend.

Last week, I spoke with Baz about Kicking And Screaming‘s creative team, singing high, being high, Steven Adler, John 5, Phil Varone, and tons more in an epic MetalSucks interview that crescendos from chill (excited new album chatter) to silly (an impromptu stoner giggle party) to rampage (invective against the Skid Row he never bargained for). Read and laugh!

Click to read more…

Few records could be as intrinsically polarizing as Anthrax’s Worship Music, the thirteen-song set whose release tomorrow ends a maddening period of band tumult while launching a new era with singer Joey Belladonna. It’s an album with history, having been completed with a new vocalist, imperiled by the new vocalist, shelved, shuffled, completed again by Belladonna and producer Jay Ruston, and now, at least, unveiled for the world to hear. In other words, Worship Music has arrived with baggage; how much of it will fit in your trunk?

Representing at least two attitudes toward Anthrax 2011, our MetalSucks official roundtable review of Worship Music is co-authored by a John Bush era devotee (MS Co-Editor-In-Chief Axl Rosenberg) and a long-suffering Belladonna booster (MS Senior Editor Anso DF). On the fence about Worship Music? Sick of one-sided, insight-free criticism? Bemused by the way MetalSucks disagrees with itself? Then join Axl and Anso as they grapple with the meaning of this year’s most dangerous album.

Click to read more…

To be in Anthrax today, it must feel like standing at the mouth of a transcontinental pipeline, squinting, feet poised to step out of dank darkness and into light. Cuz that tunnel reaches all the way back to 2003′s We’ve Come For You All and through a reunion tour with singer Joey Belladonna in 2005, a second parting with Belladonna and an attempt at redrafting singer John Bush in 2007, the late 2007 arrival of new singer Dan Nelson, the completion of Worship Music mark I, Nelson’s abrupt flake-out in July 2009, a few shows with Bush that Fall, the plan to re-enlist Bush full time (he declined), the second return of Joey Belladonna, and the second completion of Worship Music with Belladonna and producer Jay Ruston (Steel Panther, The Donnas). Got all that?

But after that stressfest — one nearly the duration of two presidential terms — Anthrax now emerges from the tunnel of stink into fresh air and sunny skies: The completed Worship Music rips. You love it. On it, drummer Charlie Benante and crew fold Joey into the modern Anthrax heavy rock sound (e.g. “Crawl” “The Devil You Know”) and roll out big, punishing waves on which Joey surfs, a melodic power-voice plowing forth atop a Thrash Metal rip curl (“Judas Priest” “Fight ‘Em ‘Til You Can’t”). It’s crazy that there’s an album at all; Worship Music might’ve never survived its parents’ nutty divorce. But Worship Music lives and lives loud as the long-awaited modern Joe-thrax album, the never attempted sequel to 1990′s Persistence Of Time, as Anthrax’s challenge to Big 4 snorers who coast on fumes as relevance laps them, and as a modern metal instant classic.

About the whole ordeal and its happy ending, MetalSucks talked with an affably frank Charlie Benante, who betrayed no fatigue from answering a billion picky questions about the fans’ perspectives, the band’s stiff upper lip, their stone-faced guitarist, Persistence‘s status as a dark classic and harbinger of ’90s frown metal, Joey’s solo career, double albums, Jody Watley, and a prompt follow-up to Worship Music.

Click to read more…

Here’s the thing about new Anthrax, in my opinion (and opinions among the various MS staffers differ greatly): it’s pretty good! Sure, I would rather be hearing John Bush’s (or even Dan Nelson’s) low, gruff snarl instead of Joey Bellardini’s high-pitched wail; a lot of Worship Music sounds like it was written for Bush/Nelson and subsequently re-tooled for Bellardini, and recent interviews with the band have confirmed that. But the songs themselves are pretty great, and Bellardini (with help from vocal producer Jay Ruston, I assume) actually did a good job penning vocal melodies to fit the already-written music. The performances are solid all around, and in the end isn’t an album’s awesomeness vs. suckiness-factor about the strength of the songs? Bellardini’s vocals sound weird / very produced at times, but his overall performance is good enough and doesn’t distract from the songs at all. Most importantly, the songs rock.

SO. With that in mind listen to “The Devil You Know” over at GuitarWorld.com; it’s the latest track to be released from Worship Music and it’s one of my favorites from the album. This is definitely one of those songs that falls into the “these riffs are begging for John Bush’s voice” category, but it’s still pretty fuckin’ headbangable if you ask me!

-VN

1) Be nicer to Sebastian Bach
2) Compare penis sizes with Tommy Lee
3) Hire Phil LaBonte as a vocal coach
4) Hire Billy Milano as a personal trainer
5) Hire Tripp Eisen as a baby sitter
6) Sleep with present-day Tawny Kitaen
7) Help Danzig clean up his motherfucking bricks, bitch
8) Listen to Ted Nugent talk about politics
9) Listen to Ted Nugent talk about romance
10) Listen to Ted Nugent talk about Ted Nugent

Click to read more…

Hey, so remember when just last week Chuck Billy said there was gonna be a tour this fall with Anthrax, Testament, Overkill, and Death Angel?

Well, yeah, turns out Overkill ain’t doing that tour.

From Metal Insider:

Click to read more…

Well, it’s been a long, long, long time coming, but Anthrax’s Worship Music is apparently FINALLY coming out on September 13. And now the studio version of the first single, “Fight ‘Em ‘Til You Can’t” — a song the band has been playing live for three years, since Dan Nelson’s brief tenure as their vocalist — is available for download here. (And, oh yeah, you hafta give up your e-mail address to get it.)

Not counting that “Ball of Confusion” cover Joey Belladonna recorded with John Bush for 1999′s Return of the Killer A’s, this is the first new Anthrax song with Belladonna in more than two decades. And it’s no secret that I’m not a Belladonna fan, but I’ll be curious to see if anyone defends his vocal performance here; I think it’s especially awful, and further demonstrates that, even if you are a Belladonna fan, his voice has not aged well. (And whoever decided he should whisper “I will end you” in sync with the drums before the second verse made a poor choice. SO CHEESY.)

But I also think the band made some weird choices in the production of the song, and those choices undermine its power. I don’t know if those guitars or keyboards under the chorus, for example, which is a bad sign; whatever they are, they make the track feel way too poppy. In fact, I’d say the whole song seems to be lacking any real edge.

But maybe it will grow on me. We’ll see.

Headbang here, then debate the quality of the song in the comments section below.

-AR

Thanks to Aleksander Sobecki for the tip!

Earlier this month Scott Ian uploaded some videos of him recording the new, seemingly forever-in-the-making Anthrax album, Worship Music. I didn’t write anything about it at the time ’cause in the videos he was working on the song “Fight ‘Em ‘Til You Can’t,” which we’ve already heard live seemingly a gajillion times, and with two different singers at that (Dan Nelson, Joey Belladonna). So the clips didn’t seem like news, ’cause the band didn’t prove that Worship Music really exists so much as they proved that that one song really exists.

But now Ian has uploaded another video — and this one has a riff we haven’t heard before! And it’s a good riff, too. I know it’s not the most innovative thing ever written, but it’s heavy, it’s catchy, it’s fun… it makes me wanna hear the rest of the song ASAP. It would be really really awesome if Worship Music turned out to be really really awesome.

Worship Music is allegedly FINALLY coming out in September via Megaforce.

-AR

[via Metal Insider]

I thought it was pretty clear that our “review” of Anthrax’s yet-to-be-released Worship Music was an April Fools’ prank — I mean, I know I give Anthrax a lot of shit, but “Bring the 21st Century Noize?” Seriously? Even I don’t think they’d pull that shit.

But I guess we fooled Metal Injection’s Rob Pasbani, ’cause he asked Anthrax about it when he interviewed them on the Black Carpet at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards last week. And I guess they didn’t think it was funny. Actually, Frankie Bello seems to have a pretty good sense of humor about it, and Scott Ian seems mildly entertained (and I stress the word “mildly”), but Charlie Benante does not seem amused. Rob Caggiano ain’t smiling, either, but he never smiles and I’m not even sure if the band lets him talk, so that’s just par for the course. Joey Belladonna apparently wasn’t even invited to the show or something so who knows what he thought of it.

ANYWAY, here’s the interview, where the band also reveals that Worship Music will FINALLY come out in September. At which point I’ll do a real review, which may amuse the band even less.

You can, and should, check out all of Metal Injection’s interviews from the Black Carpet here — they spoke to anyone and everyone who was there (except Wayne Static ’cause fuck that guy) and got lots of excellent stuff!

-AR

The possibly-not-final cover art for Anthrax’s Worship Music

So I have a friend who works closely with Camp Anthrax. I obviously can’t tell you the friend’s name, but I can tell you that he once told me that the Dan Nelson version of Worship Music was awesome, and that I’ve been begging him to let me hear it ever since. Thing is, he doesn’t actually own a copy, and has never been able to get his hands on one. Security around the album was tight before the Nelson debacle, but after, he told me, “It was like Scott and Charlie were going door-to-door personally checking people’s hard drives to make sure everyone had deleted it.”

And so last night I got a text from this friend, I guess trying to make amends for the fact that he never did come through with that Dan Nelson record: “Just got the Belladonna version of Worship Music. U wanna hear it?”

I responded simply, “Be there in 20.” And I got my ass on the subway and I went over to his place.

And I gotta tell you, guys… it’s a weird record, and there are two MASSIVE, and massively tragic, missteps… but it’s pretty great overrall. It’s not really like any metal record I’ve ever heard before. Whatever else you wanna say about Anthrax, you can’t accuse them of refusing to experiment — this album is a huge, huge risk, often welding together vastly different styles and textures of not just metal but often other genres of music, too. I don’t know if people will go for this record or not, but I think it’s kinda brilliant.

(By the way, the above album cover is a carry-over from the Dan Nelson version of the record; apparently it may be scrapped in favor of something that “feels more like the album cover of one of the old Belladonna albums.” Which would be a weird decision, because, a few songs aside, this record doesn’t sound anything like any other Anthrax album.)

And so here it is — my track-by-track breakdown of what I heard.

You guys aren’t gonna believe this shit.

Click to read more…

I like doing MetalSucks, in part, because I really do learn something new each and every week. You know what I learned this week, for example?

FUCK VAMPIRES.

Here are some other things we learned this week:

• The dudes in Lazarus A.D. like MetalSucks.
• Swamp Thing and Indian have awesome new music coming out.
• The Human Abstract’s A.J. Minette and Travis Richter know a lot about music theory, Mr. Big’s Eric Martin knows a lot about Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and Vicious Rumors’ Geoff Thorpe knows a lot about line-up changes.
• The new Rotten Sound album is choice.
• Earache Records is a good label.
• Kittie are bad at making music videos.
• TesseracT are tardy to the djent party.
• Joey Belladonna still can’t sing.
• Rites of Darkness III is gonna be a great festival for bands no one has ever heard of.
• Losing someone you admire still sucks.

I’ll be flying solo for much of next week as Vince and Kip head down to Austin for SXSW and I stay behind to ensure you are as irritated as possible. Won’t you come back and learn some more with me?

-AR

Fans who read the headline might be hoping that this is another Elseworlds-style temporary supergroup-thing, like Gary Holt touring with Slayer or Doc Coyle touring with Lamb of God, but, alas, the above photo — taken at the 2005 Roadrunner United concert — is not to be re-created live anytime soon.

Nope. See, Scott Ian got his wife, Meat Loaf’s Daughter, preggers, and he’s staying home for a bit in order to be present for the birth of the baby. So the Sepultura guitarist will be filling in for him for eight ‘Thrax shows in July (including at least one Big 4 show), according to this tweet from Kisser, which an anonymous Portugese-speaking reader assures me says what I just told you it said.

Click to read more…

Congrats to grand prize winner A.J. Gregory and runner-up Erin Wood; they correctly identified last week’s logo as belonging to be Beatus. A.J. wins a sweet Helloween 7 Sinners denim jacket, PLUS a 12 x 12 7 Sinners poster signed by all the members of Helloween, PLUS a copy of the album; and Erin gets the same, minus the coat. MetalSucks: Where Kids Can Really Win!

This week we have another super-awesome prize to give away — a signed copy of Mosh Potatoes: Recipes, Anecdotes, and Mayhem from the Heavyweights of Heavy Metal, an incredible new book from Moth Eater bassist Steve Seabury that spotlights 147 (!!!) recipes for mouth-watering “opening acts” (appetizers), “headliners” (entrees), and “encores” (desserts), including dishes from such metal titans as Lemmy, Zakk Wylde, Joey Belladonna, Dave Ellefson, Jason Bittner, and Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal… PLUS lots of great backstage stories and other metal-related shenanigans. Seriously, I’m salivating just typing about the book!!!

All you gots to do to win is identify the name of the band whose logo appears below, then shoot me an e-mail at axl AT metalsucks DOT net with your answer, your name, and your address. ALL ENTRIES WITHOUT AN ADDRESS WILL BE DISQUALIFIED. From everyone who gets it right, we’ll randomly select one winner announce his or her name next week.

Of course, if you’re too pussy to play my little game, you can always just pre-order a copy of Mosh Potatoes before its release next week. Also, our pals at RED Distribution are having their own excellent contest, “The Metal & Meat SweepSTEAKS,” in which they’re not only giving away a copy of the book, but also a customized autographed Skeletonwitch Epiphone guitar and a $150 Gift Certificate to Omaha Steaks. You can enter that contest here. And that’s in conjunction with The World’s Loudest Metal Sale at f.y.e. presented by Revolver, which is offering a shitload of metal albums for just $9.99, including the most recent releases from Between the Buried and Me, Skeletonwitch, Kingdom of Sorrow, Within the Ruins, and more. So get on that shit.

This week’s logo was recommended by reader John Lindmeier… thanks, John!

-AR

We haven’t had any real Anthrax drama in a few months, so I guess we were due. This might be the most ridiculous round yet, though, ’cause it’s really all just about Scott Ian having a lousy memory.

So here’s what happened. As you should be aware, after Anthrax re-fired Joey Belladonna and found themselves unable to re-hire John Bush, they brought on an entirely new singer, Dan Nelson. They even recorded an album with the guy, called Worship Music. One of the songs on Worship Music was called “Fight ‘Em ‘Til You Can’t.” Here’s Anthrax with Dan Nelson performing the song in Chicago in May of 2008:

Then for whatever reason Dan Nelson was either fired from or quit Anthrax, and Worship Music sat on the shelf. And then John Bush was back in the band, and then he wasn’t, at least in part, it seems, because he didn’t just wanna re-record Nelson’s parts from Worship Music.

And so Anthrax re-re-hired Joey Belladonna, who made it clear that he was amenable to re-recording Nelson’s Worship Music performance. And while we’re still waiting for Worship Music (or whatever the hell it ends up being called) to be released, this latest incarnation of Anthrax is currently touring with Slayer and Megadeth, and have even started playing “Fight ‘Em ‘Til You Can’t” with Belladonna on vocals. Here’s a video of that happening  in Uniondale this past Friday night:

Click to read more…

The prospect of a Big Four tour is titillating mostly for reasons of nostalgia; it’s exciting to think about seeing all these bands live together, but not as exciting as it is to think about seeing all these bands live together twenty years ago. (Or maybe even twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four years ago.) Different people, of course, have different opinions about which of these bands can still bring it live, but the most obvious weak spot that 99% of all metal fans will be able to agree are well past their prime are Metallica. I’ve seen Trujillo-era Metallica live and I’ve cheered for Trujillo-era Metallica live and I won’t pretend you can’t have fun at a ‘Tallica gig; but you should never listen to the live recording after, because you’ll surely realize that beer, adrenaline, and sentimentality played a big part in your enjoyment.

Click to read more…

I had completely forgotten about Vince’s love of Bob Ross until his post yesterday. It would have been awesome if Bob had done an all-metal edition of his show, in which he discussed the joy of Ed Repka and Paul Romano. Learning about your craft is so metal! Thanks for reminding me, Vince, about what an inspiration Bob should be to us all.

Here’s some other things we did this week:

• We spoke to Anthrax’s Joey Belladonna, the legendary Wino, Harvey Milk’s Creston Spiers, and Cruel Hand’s Chris Linkovich.
• Vince, Axl and Gary discussed their favorite albums of 2010 so far.
• We’re giving away a free mp3 of Fistula’s “Ohio Death Toll Rising.”
• We checked out new releases by Kvereltak, Misery Index, Watain, and Parkway Drive.
• Anso reviewed the Big Four Live from Sofia, Bulgaria movie theater satellite thingy.
• Vince did a really a good job of impersonating Axl.
• Vince also discovered two new Sumeriancore bands that stink, and one that doesn’t.
• He also wondered: What is it with drummers wearing basketball jerseys?
• Guess what Serj Tankian thinks borders are?
• DEVIN TOWNSEND HEADLINE TOUR! DEVIN TOWNSEND HEADLINE TOUR!!!

A week from today, Vince and I see Faith No More in Brooklyn. So expect lots and lot of pointless pondering about FNM next week, ’cause that’s pretty much all I’m gonna be able to think about.

-AR