Metal
Anthrax played on 4 September at Saint Vitus Bar in Brooklyn, for the venue’s reopening and to a sold-out crowd, giving the new record its first live test run: they debuted «The Edge Of Perfection», «Everybody’s Got A Plan» and «NYC 93».
The setlist blended this unreleased material with in-house classics — «Madhouse», «Caught In A Mosh», «Indians», «Metal Thrashing Mad» — and with the covers the band has carried for decades, Joe Jackson’s «Got The Time» and Trust’s «Antisocial».
The surprise was «Clobberin’ Time», by Sick Of It All, which they’d never played live before.
«Cursum Perficio» comes out 18 September through Megaforce Records, produced by Jay Ruston and the band themselves, and it’s Anthrax’s first record in ten years: the previous one, «For All Kings», dates back to 2016. Playing on it are Scott Ian and Jonathan Donais on guitars, Charlie Benante on drums, Frank Bello on bass and Joey Belladonna on vocals. Megaforce is the label run by Jon and Marsha Zazula, who released the band’s debut, «Fistful Of Metal», in 1984.
Anthrax are the only band among American thrash’s big names to come out of New York, and they’ve always had one foot in the Lower East Side hardcore scene and the shows at CBGB. That bridge produced the EP «I’m The Man» (1987), which toyed with rap before anyone in metal took it seriously, and «Bring The Noise» with Public Enemy (1991). Sick Of It All are from Queens and have been active since 1986.
Text by Mireia Bagués