Album Reviews : Anthrax – Worship Music

After 3 long years of confusion with vocalists, pioneers of thrash metal Anthrax have finally released Worship Music, the follow up to their 2003 album We’ve Come for You All. I’d heard a lot of good stuff and a lot of bad stuff about this album, even a close friend of mine who worships Anthrax told me how shit the album is at least once a day since it was released. So when the offer came around to write a review on it, I couldn’t turn it down because I was interested to hear what it sounds like.

To me, this album is alright, but it just doesn’t have that signature sound that Anthrax had 30 years ago; it doesn’t sound like something Anthrax would write. Don’t get me wrong, there are some good songs and the production is brilliant, but there’s some songs on the album that make me want to listen to something else.

“Earth on Hell” is the first song off the album (minus the intro “Worship”) which straight away opens up with crushing blast beats and thrashy riffs, one of the few songs that sounded like Anthrax back in their 80’s. Joey’s voice sounds more powerful than ever in this song. “The Devil You Know” was another song that sounded like 80’s era Anthrax, with groovy thrash hooks and an arena anthem-like chorus. It’s also the song with the best solo on the album in my opinion, so much 3-finger tapping and shredding.

“Fight ‘Em til You can’t” is my favourite off the album, even though it was the first single. Although the album isn’t something I could listen to over and over, this song I probably could. The backing vocals pierced my ear with an unbelievable amount of power, aswell as an overly intense riff to go behind it.

Over the next few songs, I began to get bored of the album after more listens. I can listen to the first 4 songs a lot, but whenever I listen to this album I feel like skipping songs such as “I’m Alive”, “In the End” and “The Giant”. It’s the part of the album that just doesn’t sound like Anthrax, which disappointed me. I’m Alive and In the End are both fairly slow with darker, breakdown-like riffs that don’t interest me too much.

The album picks the energy back up again with “Judas Priest”. The leads at the start and end of this song give me an amazing feeling and instantly fill me with a whole lot of energy. The chorus is something I can bang my head or pump the horns to whenever it’s playing, and the solo shreds almost as much as The Devil You Know did. After that song, the album became less interesting again, with another slow shaker called “Crawl”, but ends on a good note with “The Constant” being filled with groovy riffs, and “Revolution Screams” returning to the faster sound heard at the start of the album.

To sum the album up, it starts off really good, and then drops a bit, and then good; bad, good again, which is why I can’t listen to the album without wanting to listen to something else, or having to skip songs on the album. The production is great and you can tell Anthrax has put 110% effort into making this album the best they possibly can, but it wasn’t something I enjoyed all the way through. 6/10

Artist: Anthrax
Album: Worship Music
Year: 2011
Genre: Thrash
Origin: USA
Label: Megaforce Records/Riot
anthrax.com

Track listing:
1. Worship (Intro)
2. Earth on Hell
3. The Devil You Know
4. Fight ’em ’til You Can’t
5. I’m Alive
6. Hymn 1
7. In the End
8. The Giant
9. Hymn 2
10. Judas Priest
11. Crawl
12. The Constant