Anthrax – a cure to all that is evil within the current state of Metal music. If like me, you are sick to death of the tripe that passes for metal music these days, the new genres referred to as Rap Metal or Nu-Metal, then this album is like the crushing meteor you have been wanting since the conception of the impure variants of metal music, the anodyne solution to all that is wrong with metal music.
Nu-Metal is a carthatic experience – try once if you are the risky type, and then pray to God you are never exposed to that pile of bullshit ever again. My hatred for all that is Nu-Metal has been prevelant from the moment I heard the music of rap and metal fused. Alone they are beautifully poetic genres, presented in variant forms which provide an avenue for people to channel what they feel. What Nu-Metal became was a trend music for those who wanted to be a part of something new, regardless of the quality or the sheer stupidity of it all.
We’ve Come For You All (herein referred to as WCFYA) is the follow up album to Anthrax’s last release, Volume 8. Volume was not bad, it wasn’t their greatest album, but it wasn’t as bad as say, anything by Metallica since they sold out after the Metallica Metallica album and decided to commercialise their music for a more retarded and softer audience.
This album has been listened by my ears as often, and probably more than Audioslave – what Audioslave satisfies for me with poetic hard rock tunes, Anthrax satisfies the sheer energy within with the hardest, loudest tracks out at the moment.
Nu-Metal is a carthatic experience – try once if you are the risky type, and then pray to God you are never exposed to that pile of bullshit ever again
If you’ve been waiting for a real metal album that shows what metal was, what it can be, and what it should always be – then grab this album. Harking back to the 80s when metal was metal, WCFYA is a beautiful blend of thrash, heavy and soft metal. It is a metal album through and through. You will not hear any new metal shit from these guys, they don’t have to scream and grunt like immature adults while wearing mask clowns, and beating each other up because their music is so crap, tehy need to entertain each other by thrashing the crap out of each other.
The album has no interest in the wannabe, disaffected youth of today who seem to think Nu-Metal can even be deemed music. If like me you grew up with metal during the 80s with the likes of Metallica in their early years, Megadeth, Pantera and the like, then this is YOUR album. You will remember what metal used to be like; you will want to jump around your room like some crazed mad bastard playing chords on your air guitar, smashing your head against the flow of the air. Talking of Pantera, the guitarist makes an appearance on one of the tracks, as does Roger Daltry of The Who.
WCFYA opens with a beautiful intro, which gives a teasing taste on what the album has in store – chords which build upon each other, music that grows, drums that beat into you as though a thousand hammers are slamming into your head. The energy builds, the music drives you, if flows within you like a narcotic passion of fire twisting and turning, burning your insides to scream out and let out all that fucked up shit inside of you out.
when I say softer, you have to understand the whole album is metal, and thus when I say soft, it is with a pinch of salt
What metal music was about, and what this album reminds us, was being able to channel your pain, fears, angers all through the music. It gave you reason to listen, the music, the words spoke to you. TO YOU. And you felt it, in your body, in your bones and you knew someone else understood, but it did it without patronising you because you know they went through hell to say what they’re saying. What Nu-Metal does is insult the whole ethos of metal. This pisses me off greatly.
Every single goddamed track on this album is just a sheer priviledge and joy to listen to. It reminds me of my younger days of frustation and anger with the world, a reflective look on what I used to be like and how I have grown up, much like the music.
And this is one of the key reasons I love this album, Anthrax have not just taken what they normally do and just rehashed it, the songs are poetic, meaningful and powerful – combined with the sheer power of the music that tramples and stampedes over your body like a million rhinos crushing your body, it makes you rise and it gives you something that metal has been lacking.
If like me you grew up with metal during the 80s with the likes of Metallica in their early years, Megadeth, Pantera and the like, then this is YOUR album
Stand out tracks include Nobody Knows Anything, an incredible, mindblowing beuatifully constructed powerhouse of a track fuelled with some insanely fast guitar playing and awesome riffs – it blow your head wide open, much like a shotgun to your head. Equally angry is Black Dahlia – a short but sweet little mind destroyer.
The softest track is Safe Home, although when I say softer, you have to understand the whole album is metal, and thus when I say soft, it is with a pinch of salt. The lyrics are harsh and reflective, contrasted with the angry guitars and mad drumming.
The bonus tracks are fantastic with cover versions, and an amazing acoustic version of Safe Home. It just blows my mind to hear the track with such a different tone, and a complete contrast to the rest of the album – yet it captures that same sadness and sorrow, yet does so with an empty lonliness in the vocals and guitar alone.
Guys, if you love metal – if you the crap that is out there, if you have forgotten what metal was supposed to sound like, please, for the sake of your sanity, come back to Earth, pick up this album and remember what metal is all about. Pure, uncompromised, gritty metal.
Verdict: One of the best Anthrax albums in a long time, one of the best metal albums in a LONG time