Anthrax - Worship Music review
| Band: | Anthrax |
| Album: | Worship Music |
| Style: | Heavy metal, Thrash metal |
| Release date: | September 2011 |
01. Worship (Intro)
02. Earth On Hell
03. The Devil You Know
04. Fight 'Em Til You Can't
05. I'm Alive
06. Hymn 1
07. In The End
08. The Giant
09. Hymn 2
10. Judas Priest
11. Crawl
12. The Constant
13. Revolution Screams
14. New Noise [Refused cover] [bonus]
Eight years have passed since Anthrax, the so-called "kings of mosh", last released a studio album. Although their heavy metal shift (from their thrash origins) wasn't causing much anticipation for this album at first, several announcements and the return of Joey Belladonna, as well as the online promotional release of the excellent track "Fight 'Em Til You Can't", caused this album to be one of the most anticipated metal albums of the year. A decent amount of people were expecting it to be a groundbreaking thrash metal album, including myself, and most others at least expected it to be a somehow solid release.
And as it turned out, this album is indeed a solid one, though it could have been much better. Empowered by some of the best production work in post-2000 metal, imbued with strong and catchy riffs and topped with Belladonna's ever-strong vocals, this album most certainly delivers as a metal album in general. However, it has two illnesses which considerably lower its reputation and waste lots of its potential:
First, there's the slight change of songwriting quality between some songs (think "Crawl" and "Earth On Hell"). Due to this, the first part of the album (from the intro to beginning of "The Giant") sounds like a masterpiece, while the rest of the album sounds roughly mediocre. And although there are memorable riffs and decent parts in the second part, and a somehow decent song ("Judas Priest"), you're bound to begin fast-forwarding when "Crawl" doesn't seem to finish. That introduces us to the Second Illness: the songs are too fucking long, longer than they should be. Even in great songs such as "Fight 'Em Til You Can't", the songs take too much time and the riffs repeat endlessly. For example, when you hear "In The End", the riff, while great-sounding, keeps repeating without vocals for almost the first minute and fifteen seconds of the song (and then goes to repeating in the background with Joey saving us from fatal repetitiveness, am I repetitively repeating the word repetitiveness too much? Sorry for being repetitive!).
By the end of the album, however, one might still feel good about it because the last track, "Revolution Screams", is actually not bad at all and has a somewhat funny silence of about 5 - 6 minutes before it continues in a different style. Overall, this album I would divide into two parts: one extremely good and the other repetitive and mediocre. It seems like most of the good parts were written after Anthrax's reformation back to thrash, and the bad parts (second half) were probably already written back when Dan Nelson was in the band and Anthrax were still on the heavy train. This album still shows that they can produce masterpieces, however, and it most certainly promises a return to form by the next record or two, so we can most certainly expect better.
Overall rating: Good.
Highlights: "Earth On Hell", "The Devil You Know", "Fight 'Em Til You Can't", "Revolution Screams"
Rating breakdown
| Performance: | 10 |
| Songwriting: | 8 |
| Originality: | 7 |
| Production: | 10 |
Written by Iron Nostarion | 21.09.2011
Guest review disclaimer:
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.
Rating:
6.6
6.6
|
Rating: 6.6 |
I contracted my first case of Anthrax in '87 when a friend started blaring "I'm The Man!" in his truck one night. Was hoping for the best on this album? and went back nearly 25 years for the inspiration for this review. Hit play and sing along! Now they're Anthrax and they take no shit Over the last three years had eight vocalists Read more ›› |
Rating:
9.6
9.6
|
Rating: 9.6 |
Let us get this out of the way immediately: yes, it's true, Worship Music only has about three thrash songs on it. Yes, "Fight 'Em 'Till You Can't" bears some striking similarities to "Gridlock" off of Persistence Of Time. Joey Belladonna is overdubbed a lot. Most of the album is slow or mid-paced. Essentially, this album is different. It is not the same Anthrax that Joey left In 1992. If you hit 'play' expecting to hear "Indians" or "Time," you will be sadly disappointed. However, on its own merits, Worship Music is a masterpiece. Read more ›› |
Rating:
6.9
6.9
|
Rating: 6.9 |
"At last!" one might shout being finally able to lay hands on the newest Anthrax effort, Worship Music. Eight long years we waited for some new material. Well, alright, new material released officially on CD. It's easy to assume that the role of this album - apart from bringing some good music of course - was to prove that Anthrax didn't vanish and are still here to remind the youngsters what thrashing is all about. Did they manage to do it? Well... Read more ›› |
Comments
Comments: 13
Visited by: 120 users
| MyNameJeff Posts: 438 From: UK  |
Cool review! this is album is a good comeback for anthrax and i'm sure the next album will be even better! 
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| Iron Nostarion Maiden Whore Posts: 289 From: Jordan  |
Written by MyNameJeff on 21.09.2011 at 21:59 Quite positive about that too. Thanks for the comment, mate. 
---- To their tombs the people are immured, There is their gold, treasure and wealth, The only condition is to ignore them, Those who feed on corruption and weave death
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| BitterCOld The Ancient One Posts: 15250  |
You score it a shade below "very good" - despite referring to it as "solid" and the second half as mediocre with one "decent" high point. "the album has two parts - one extremely good (8) and one mediocre (6) " you overrated the album overall based upon how you described it...
---- 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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| Mattybu Posts: 2589 From: Canada  |
Written by BitterCOld on 21.09.2011 at 23:58 I would say "extremely" good would be a 9 but really mediocre could be a 5 too. I think a little over-rating went on too though. Also, 10 for the performance? Whaaah? I would say an 8 at the very most, I mean there wasn't one really impressive guitar solo the whole album through. PS: I though my ipod was broken the first time I listened to Revolution Screams lol
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| Iron Nostarion Maiden Whore Posts: 289 From: Jordan |
Written by BitterCOld on 21.09.2011 at 23:58 Extremely good as in 10 in my opinion, means like "excellent" for me. And mediocre in 6, yep. The average is almost eight. 7.9.
---- To their tombs the people are immured, There is their gold, treasure and wealth, The only condition is to ignore them, Those who feed on corruption and weave death
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| Iron Nostarion Maiden Whore Posts: 289 From: Jordan |
Written by Mattybu on 22.09.2011 at 02:06 The solos weren't bad at all, sure they weren't legendary though, but wouldn't deserve decreasing performance. Look at the rhythm guitar, bass, drum and vocal work. Deserves 10 for me. A little overrating, I think so too objectively, but not much. If I would reconsider this and go into it more thoughtfully, mmm, perhaps 7.6 - 7.5 at the lowest. Besides, overall impression is indeed 7.9 for me.
---- To their tombs the people are immured, There is their gold, treasure and wealth, The only condition is to ignore them, Those who feed on corruption and weave death
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| BitterCOld The Ancient One Posts: 15250 |
Written by Iron Nostarion on 22.09.2011 at 23:32 10? extremely good? 10 should be reserved for legendary. extremely good is somewhere between 8 (very good) and 9 (excellent)* ... 8.5 meets 6 = 7.25 or so. but hey. i get it. this is MS and it seems most people either overrate an album they like by a full point, or crush an album they dislike by at least 2 points too many. you scored it below 8, which is the threshold for fight-starting by internet fanbois, so even if you did overrate it comparing your scores to actual words, you were at least in the ballpark. * both are the MS scoring system: 10 - Perfect (not "extremely good") 9 - Excellent 8 - Very Good 7 - Good 6 - Average 5 - Not Good 4 - Bad 3 - Very Bad 2 - Pure Shit 1 - Worst Ever
---- 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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| Iron Nostarion Maiden Whore Posts: 289 From: Jordan |
Written by BitterCOld on 23.09.2011 at 01:09 Mmmm. However, you gotta realize, when I was writing the review, the overall rating description also noted the overall feeling of the album. So, combine that with my understanding of points, and you may see why it's 7.9. Probably it's overrated, as I see your points and they are valid, but that's the rating I would honestly give it.
---- To their tombs the people are immured, There is their gold, treasure and wealth, The only condition is to ignore them, Those who feed on corruption and weave death
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| jimmy Posts: 42 From: USA |
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| Angelic Storm Melodious Posts: 6675 From: UK  |
Written by BitterCOld on 23.09.2011 at 01:09 Yep, a 10 should only be given to an album that you'd class above being great/very good. (In other words, a stonewall classic lol) My rating system, is very simple. Anything between 1-5 is a bad album. It's just a scale of "how bad" the album is. 6-7 are both average scales, with 7 being good but nothing great, 6 being dangerously close to being a bad album, but has just enough redeeming features to keep it above the truly "bad" threshold. 8 is a very good album, but has enough niggling flaws to stop it from being truly great. 9 is an amazing album, that maybe has a very minor flaw (like one filler) that stops from achieving classic status. (which is of course, a 10) Sometimes it can be tricky to give an album a definitive rating though, which is where I think being able to add decimal points to a review score can be very helpful.  @Jimmy: I pretty much totally agree with your asessment of the album, aside from "Judas Priest" being a weak track. (although yes, the band claiming it's not about the band Judas Priest is stupid with all the references to the band's song in the lyrics!)  For me, "Crawl" is definitely the weak spot of the album.
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| RavenKing Posts: 1941 From: Canada  |
Written by Angelic Storm on 30.09.2011 at 12:17 That's pretty much how I see ratings. Though I admit I'm against rating music on a scale and I don't care for ratings at all.
---- They shake your hand and they smile and they buy you a drink They say we'll be your friends we'll stick with you till the end But everybody's only looking out for themselves And you say who can you trust I'll tell you nobody
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