Anthrax - For All Kings review
| Band: | Anthrax |
| Album: | For All Kings |
| Style: | Heavy metal, Thrash metal |
| Release date: | February 26, 2016 |
| A review by: | Dream Taster |
Disc I
01. You Gotta Believe
02. Monster At The End
03. For All Kings
04. Breathing Lightning
05. Suzerain
06. Evil Twin
07. Blood Eagle Wings
08. Defend/Avenge
09. All Of Them Thieves
10. This Battle Chose Us
11. Zero Tolerance
Disc II [boxset/Digipak bonus]
01. Fight 'Em 'Til You Can't [live]
02. A.I.R. [live]
03. Caught In A Mosh [live]
04. Madhouse [live]
Among the giants of US Thrash metal, Anthrax has always been closest to my heart. Maybe it is an East Coast versus West Coast thing. In any case, we are lucky to have most of these bands still around. Much like Testament, Exodus and Death Angel, the New Yorkers are making a big statement with the release of For All Kings. Their previous album Worship Music saw the return of their talisman singer Joey Belladonna for what was a step in the right direction. Anticipation has had time to build seeing that this follow-up comes about 4 1/2 years later. Time seem to have no effect on the musicians of Anthrax. Their trademark sound has not changed one iota. Scott Ian is shredding like he alone knows how. Charlie Benante is pounding those drums in his very-recognizable beat. Frank Bello is grooving his usual sound. Joey Belladonna is singing his heart out. It feels like the band from 1987, just with a much cleaner production. The addition of Jonathan Donais of Shadows Fall-fame as second guitarist also has contributed to keeping the energy level up.
All of the tracks have effective hooks and plenty of punch. From the 7-minute long grand opener "You Gotta Believe" to the pseudo-power-ballad/heavy-metal-anthem "This Battle Chose Us", there is a nice spread of healthy ideas. "Evil Twin" is such a direct thrash piece that it has "pit song" written all over it. Another remarkable song is "Breathing Lightning", which has a killer groove a la Faith No More yet retains the integrity of an Anthrax song. To sum up, none of the songs are fillers. My favorite track keeps changing, which is also the sign of a great record. And while there is quite a bit of variety on For All Kings, it does feel like a tight and cohesive album. The digipack and boxset come with tasty live versions of four of the band's most well-known anthems. The recording sound is just dirty enough to make them enjoyable and true-to-form old-school metal.
For All Kings is a very solid album. It has the right assemblage of old school mentality and nowadays relevance. It is varied, full of energy and just so right. It is refreshing to hear Scott Ian and company produce something of this intensity in 2016. Thrash metal is alive and well. Thank you Anthrax.
Rating breakdown
| Performance: | 8 |
| Songwriting: | 8 |
| Originality: | 8 |
| Production: | 9 |
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Written on 18.03.2016 by
Bringing you reviews of quality music and interesting questions such as: "A picture is worth a thousand words. How many words is a song worth?" I have only got so much patience and skills, you do the math. |
Comments
Comments: 19
Visited by: 252 users
| Ace Frawley The Spaceman Posts: 1459  |
Very enjoyable album. Thanks for the review. Amazing that they are able to release such a high quality album in 2016, so many years after their 80s heyday. Enjoy the lead guitar breaks by Jon Donais. Good addition to the band.
---- The sun shines over The Fool...
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| Marcel Hubregtse Grumpy Old Fuck Elite Posts: 40071  |
Incredibly mediocre albumonce again.
---- Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.) 05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996 
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| Daniell _爱情_ Elite Posts: 6098  |
Finally a good album from Anthrax after over 20 years of crap.
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| slim pickings Account deleted |
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| Daniell _爱情_ Elite Posts: 6098 |
Written by [user id=17278] on 18.03.2016 at 12:24 The quality of Anthrax's music has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of any other band's music. Yes, 20 years of crap: 1993 - Sound of White Noise - a really good album, I liked it then and I still do now. 1995 - Stomp 442 - four good songs out of 11 = crap album 1998 - Volume 8 - No good songs at all = totally crap album 2003 - We've Come For You All - five good songs out of 15 (or so) = crap album 2011 - Worship Music - four good songs out of 13 = crap album 2016 - For All Kings - a good album finally. To be precise, 2016 minus 1993 = 23 years of crap.
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| slim pickings Account deleted |
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| Daniell _爱情_ Elite Posts: 6098 |
Written by [user id=17278] on 18.03.2016 at 13:39 Perhaps they do, but not from me. Even though I do think that in the last 20 years it was Anthrax who did the worst out the "big four". Quote: Fair enough. They have a strong fanbase, so there must be a lot of people who liked their albums more than me 
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| TheMAGAmvm Soycrusher Posts: 1086  |
Written by Daniell on 18.03.2016 at 13:52 I think Anthrax atm is the best out of all Big 4. Considering Metallica hit rock bottom with St. Anger and Lulu, Megadeth had many ups and downs, the latest being Super Collider. Megadeth actually can be credited as the most consistent Big 4 band throughout the 90s. As for Slayer, they have been crap since SOTA. Aside the Big 4, the non-Big 4 bands did much better, whether Testament, Overkill, Exodus or Death Angel, they released a couple of great albums. Overkill tops them all with 3 consecutive great albums (the latest 3).
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| Tomas Piller Posts: 100  |
Written by TheMAGAmvm on 18.03.2016 at 16:10 That a band like Anthrax ever belonged to a group called "Big Thrash Four" is hilarious and stinks with the good old american exceptionalism, the fourth place absolutely belongs to Kreator. And with what these 5 bands (big 4 & Kreator) produced since cca 2000, Kreator runs circles around all the other four's pathetic albums.
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| Marcel Hubregtse Grumpy Old Fuck Elite Posts: 40071 |
And someone once again doesn't seem to grasp the concept of The Big Four Of Thrash" it stands for the BIGGEST thrash bands at the time when it comes to sales figures of albums and how many people they drew when playing live.
---- Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.) 05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996
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| Tomas Piller Posts: 100 |
Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 18.03.2016 at 17:25 C'mon, nobody talks about HOW it historically happened, it's on wikipedia, you know. The thing is they are still lauded to these days often just for having that tag attached and they look like Aquaman being part of Fantastic 4 - hilarious.
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| TheMAGAmvm Soycrusher Posts: 1086 |
Written by Tomas Piller on 18.03.2016 at 17:22 That's your opinion. If I were to include a German band into the Big 4, I would include Destruction. Their first 3 albums are amazing. Kreator is great, but their debut was very amateur work, and they sound too atonal some times. Sodom too primitive. Destruction were by far the best and most professional. Best thrash Germany offered. Songs like "Bestial Invasion" can never go wrong.
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| UPDIRNS Posts: 366 |
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| Lord_Regnier Posts: 1469  |
Written by Tomas Piller on 18.03.2016 at 17:22 Totally agree. Even though Kreator were awful in the 90's, since they came back to Thrash with "Violent Revolution" they released only very good albums. Imo, from all Thrash bands who started in the 80's, Kreator is the only one to still release albums that worth a listening nowadays. Metallica and Megadeth are disposable mainstream Metal bands and Slayer, as great as they were in the 80's, have not released anything interesting after "Seasons In The Abyss".
---- "Why would we fear death, when life is so much more frightening?"
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| BitterCOld The Ancient One Admin Posts: 15287  |
Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 18.03.2016 at 17:25 i'm debating doing another of my articles on this so we can skip rehashing things over and again. new album just doesn't do much of anything for me, ust like the last. meh.
---- get the fuck off my lawn. Beer Bug Virus Spotify Playlist crafted by Nikarg and I. Feel free to tune in and add some pertinent metal tunes!
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| Bad English Tage Westerlund Posts: 62000  |
Quote: Sounds like a hip hop thing to me anyway I agree this band must stop working new albums, but play live 80's albums. Like Twisted Sister does. 90's 00's albums are pretty lame and nothing Even Maiden, Ac/Dc last are better as all from this bands lately
---- I stand whit Ukraine and Israel. They have right to defend own citizens. Stormtroopers of Death - "Speak English or Die"  I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
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| Daggon Underpaid M.D. Posts: 1689  |
I love Anthrax, but after a couple of spins, I find this album quite average, it's like they're not even trying to Thrash.
---- "Les vers savent qu'ils n'ont pas d'ailes, c'est pour cela qu'ils se cachent sous terre"
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| slim pickings Account deleted |
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| nikarg Staff Posts: 7345  |
This is the best the band has delivered since Persistence of Time. Very enjoyable album and better than the other recent Big releases. I never expected to say this because Anthrax have always been my least favourite from the Big 4.
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