State Of Euphoria (1988)
Persistence Of Time (1990)
Persistence Of Time (1990)
Anthrax career as
thrash metal pioneers peaked with “Among The Living” and the success was a
fact. The album sold really well and they did high profile tours as support to
Metallica. In 1988 Anthrax was a big name in the genre. It was time for the
follow up. What could possibly go wrong?
Well pretty much
everything actually.
Recorded in the spring
of 1988 and released in September the album that was produced by Mark Dodson
failed to surpass the expectations that “Among The Living” had generated. The
album starts with the looming cello in the intro to “Be All End All” which has
a crushingly heavy opening riff. The song is actually one of my favorite
Anthrax tracks ever. Then “Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind” and
“Make Me Laugh” follow and here is where at least I began to think that something
was missing on “State Of Euphoria” even though I had a hard time
pinpointing exactly what it was back then.
Then the cover of
French metal pioneer Trust's song “Antisocial”. Well it’s both a blessing and a
curse. It was the song that got the most attention on the album and is still
included in their live set as it gets any crowd into a frenzy. The problem is
that no one remembers anything else from the album. The rest of the album feels
tired and formless after that and that is a shame because there are some great
songs on there like “Now It’s Dark”. The sound of the album is another problem
for me. The crispy sound of the previous album is now replaced with a thicker
sound that does not work fully for the riffing of Scott Ian. I turn up the
volume but the guitars just don’t crack the speakers as one would expect and
Joey Belladonna's vocals are buried way down in the mix.
“State Of Euphoria” might have
some great tracks on it but as a whole it just doesn’t work. And maybe they
were thinking too much when they wrote and recorded it. It doesn’t sound as if
they had any fun. The darker sound that they were attempting just sounded dull
and the humor that they laced their songs with earlier was gone.
Two years later. The
world of metal was changing. Grunge was still an unknown beast but the winds
were a-changing none the less. Gone was the glam and hairspray. The Berlin Wall was gone.
Nations disappeared and new countries were born. The threat of nuclear
apocalypse seemed gone.
I think that
“Persistence Of Time” has been sadly underestimated as an album. Anthrax realized that what had been done in
the past was history and that something new had to happen. It wasn’t until 1993
that they would take the final step out of the 80’s but they celebrated the new
decade with an album far more mature and well crafted than the previous one.
“Persistence Of Time” was recorded in the fall of 1989 again with Dodson behind
the mixer and the recording session was tormented by a fire where all equipment
in the studio was destroyed. But when the album saw the light of day in august
1990 it revealed a band that had progressed in big way musically. The thrash
element was still there but the album is by far the heaviest and most diverse
in the discography so far. The speed was reduced and the songs are better
compositions all together compared to “State Of Euphoria”. And the darker sound that partly
was introduced on that album suits this one way better.
Considering that this
was to be Joey Belladonna's last album with Anthrax for almost 20 years it’s
kind of ironic that he has some of his absolute best moments as singer on
this one. Gone is the over the top banshee screams. Instead he has found a very
nice midrange voice that fits right into the darker music. As a whole this
album feels more like a unit of eleven songs that are well thought through and
executed with precision. And on this one it’s the band's own songs that make
the album so great and not the cover of Joe Jacksons “Got The Time”, even
though it’s one hell of a party starter.
In 1992 Belladonna
suddenly left Anthrax. Record label politics and Scott Ian’s quest for world
domination were the main reasons for this. The music industry shifted and
everything was supposed to be “alternative”. For that job Anthrax made the
decision to let Belladonna go and bring in John Bush whose voice has that nice
cozy grunge rawness. But that is another story.
-The Void
Antisocial
In My World
Got The Time
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