I may have bemoaned the decline of thrash in previous columns. If you have been keeping up with me, you would think that there’s really no such thing as modern thrash. “Huh, that’s too bad. It must’ve died in 1993 or something.” Well, sorta? It would be tough to find…
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.
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).
Let’s just kick this into high gear immediately with some thrash real talk. HOT TAKE: Anthrax sucks. Everyone just keep your pants on for that. Whenever a discussion of the Big 4 comes up, inevitably it becomes an argument about Anthrax. There’s no question that Metallica, Megadeth, and Slayer should…
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…
Editor’s Note: Pete has a simple goal with this column – keep thrash metal alive. He’ll explore key bands. albums and movements in the scene every month. To kick things off, he’ll take a look back at thrash’s history and his own journey with the genre. … When I first got…
Heavy Blog calls these Deep Dives, but it would be more accurate to call this a Rabbit Hole. This article will be the first of a two-part series in which we will examine the close association between horror and metal. Then, we’ll delve into the world of cinema to see…
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…
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.
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…
