Into the Pit – A Semi-Defense of Anthrax…Sort Of

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Guys, I really tried with Anthrax. I fully intended to write a defense of Anthrax as a Big 4 band. Ask my girlfriend. Ask the editors. Ask anybody who lets me talk about the blog to them. I really wanted to do that. I had a great plan! I intentionally started the Testament column with “ANTHRAX SUX LOL” because I wanted to write, “And whoever that idiot was who said Anthrax sucks can go play in traffic!” It was going to be so great. Self-deprecating humor is disarming, even if total comment thread dopes can’t understand tongue-in-cheek humor via the written word.

I had listened to some Anthrax records before, so I had some idea of what I was in for. “Sure, there might be some stinkers here, but overall I’ll find what I need.” And then I started listening. And I kept listening. Fistful of Metal. Spreading the Disease. Among the Living. State of Euphoria. When I got to Persistence of Time, a thought occurred to me.

I still can’t defend Anthrax. I just can’t do it.

The Anatomy Of – Ultra-Violence

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It hasn’t been too long since we told you about Turin’s Ultra-Violence, a band approaching thrash metal from a clever and convincing perspective. The secret to the formula was injecting it with plenty of heavy metal influences, found on emotional outros, killer bass lines and larger than life choruses. Seeing as the band hail from what we’d consider a “musical periphery” and don’t exactly conform to many of the habits of the more mainstream and settled scenes of metal, digging into their influences presented us with a tantalizing opportunity. And thus, we are proud to present to you today a host of interesting picks from Loris Castiglia (vocals/guitars).

Hey! Listen to Angelus Apatrida!

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Angelus Apatrida have been one of the most consistently impressive thrash bands of the modern era. They’ve managed to establish a strong cult following, but the Spanish quartet have hardly received the kind of exposure given to American acts like Havok, Warbringer or Municipal Waste. Nevertheless, last May saw the…

Kataklysm – Meditations

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After seemingly running out of steam toward the end of the previous decade, Kataklysm bounced back in fine form with 2013’s Waiting For The End To Come and its worthy follow-up Of Ghosts and Gods (2015). Having taken an uncharacteristically long time between releases, in order to focus on their…

Half-Life: Bleeding Through

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If you’re not convinced that we’re currently deep in the middle of the metalcore resurgence, then the simple fact that tomorrow sees the release of the first Bleeding Through record in over six-years should lay those doubts to rest. You’ll have to wait until then for Jordan to tell you just how good Love Will Kill All is, but this seems like as good an opportunity as ever to look back upon the career of a band who were foundational to the dominant heavy metal movement of the new millennium, and who certainly carved out a strong following for themselves, yet who—in retrospect—feel somewhat overlooked compared to their peers, especially considering the sheer quality and consistency of their output. You might say, that their genre’s Testament and, if new single “Fade Into The Ash” is anything to go by, it would also seem they haven’t lost any of that edge in the more than half-decade interim.

Hey! Listen to Extinction A.D.!

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Changing style can often be a difficult transition to make. Bands can sometimes get away with it if they get in early enough in their career, before they’ve established their trademark sound (see: Darkthrone, Paradise Lost). Later-day transitions, however, can be much harder for fans to stomach, especially if they…

The Metal Explosion: 1985 – 1987

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If the story of 1980 to 1984 was how NWOBHM (and more specifically, Iron Maiden) awoke metal from its dormancy to tear the boundaries of popular music, then 1985 – 1987 is about the coronation of thrash metal atop the metal throne, and the subsequent underground rumblings of a closely linked cousin, a blood brother faster, more brutal, and more astonishing — death metal.