ANTHRAX - FOR ALL KINGS (2016 ALBUM REVIEW)

Anthrax released their eleventh album earlier this year, and it's a real stunner. I'm a bit of a late bloomer when it comes to Anthrax. I have now purchased their last three studio releases and I'm turning into more and more of a fan every day.

Let's get straight to the meat of this album...the songs. They are just very good. I'm not a huge fan of thrashy, blindingly speedy metal. For the most part, that's just not my style. There are spots of that kind of stuff, but much of the work has a melodic feel as well. And that suits me just fine. The disc kicks off with a foreboding minute and a half instrumental. It sounds to me like the listener is walking into a bad situation. Impaled flows directly into You Gotta Believe, which is a terrific workout song, driven by a crisp snare drum. I really love the breakdown and the way the band returns to the main section of the song. And though the first couple of bars of Monster At The End are thrashy, the balance of the song is more melodic and potentially radio friendly (although at this point and time, a radio hit is probably out of the question). The title track also features a thrash riff and a driving snare drum. Up next is Breathing Lightning, and this is my favorite track on the album. It builds as it moves along and settles into a "light" thrash beat. But Joey Belladonna's vocals really stand out here. I also like the lyrical content of the song. The song is followed by a little instrumental interlude that, although not bad, could have been either incorporated into the previous song or just left off the album completely.

Suzerain isn't bad at all, but it isn't quite as interesting as most of the other tracks. The band throws more thrash riffing at you with Evil Twin. Like the previous song, it's uneventful, at least as far as the verses go, but the chorus is much, much better.

The final five tracks wrap this album up quite nicely. Blood Eagle Wings is pretty epic, while Defend/Avenge makes me wanna pump some iron. Again, All Of Them Thieves moves the album in more of a radio friendly, melodic direction. For a thrash metal band, these guys throw down some nice vocals. The final two tracks, This Battle Chose Us and Zero Tolerance scream "music to workout by", with the latter being some sort of political statement. The Japanese release contains a bonus track, but the version I own has no such track.

Overall, this is a very good release. It's my favorite metal release so far in 2016, edging out Megadeth at this point. The songs are strong, vocals are terrific as is the guitar playing. There's a lot to like here. It's not perfect, there are a couple of songs that don't have quite the same bite as the majority, but even those aren't instant skip tracks. If I have one actual complaint here, it's the running time of the album. I'm more of a forty minute album guy, whereas this one clocks in right at an hour.

Overall Raiting: 4 out of 5 "Metalicious" Stars

Tracks:

1. Impaled

2. You Gotta Believe

3. Monster At The End

4. For All Kings

5. Breathing Lightning

6. Breathing Out

7. Suzerain

8. Evil Twin

9. Blood Eagle Wings

10. Defend/Avenge

11. All Of The Thieves

12. This Battle Chose Us!

13. Zero Tolerance

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by TageRyche on August 25, 2016 at 7:12am

I have this album, but I was really not enthused with it after the first listen. I was going to review it, but I haven't worked up the enthusiasm to listen to it again yet.

I guess I'll have to get around to it after reading your review.