It’s been a curious eight years for the New York metal band Anthrax. Their last album, 2003’s We’ve Come For You All, was respectable but not a patch on their 80s stuff, which catapulted them to the ranks of the Big Four Of Thrash (where they still remain today). Then they switched singers not once but four times, thanks to their 90s frontman John Bush being replaced by his predecessor Joey Belladonna – and then both being briefly usurped by Dan Nelson, whose catastrophic tenure in the band cost them much credibility. Worship Music has been on the back burner for at least four years, and it’s safe to say that, in the metal world, there have been few comeback records as important as this.
Thrashers will be disappointed that it follows the same heavy-rock path as We Have Come… and much of Anthrax’s mid-career material; but persevere and the old-schoolers will find a lot to love in mid-tempo workouts such as Earth On Hell and In The End, where the returned Belladonna and the rest of the band are on mesmerising form. The name of the game here, however, is texture rather than aggression, and the cello interlude of Hymn I is an accurate summation of the experimental but accessible nature of the music. The Devil You Know, Fight ’Em Till You Can’t and the knowing Judas Priest are hummable, moderately heavy metal anthems that encapsulate where Anthrax are nowadays: making commercial but credible music that doesn’t pretend that it’s still 1987.
