“Paranoia time”

If you were a metal fan in the 80s then you were quite familiar with “The Big Four”. “The Big Four” meaning Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax. My older brother introduced me to Metallica’s Master of Puppets and Megadeth’s Peach Sells…But Who’s Buying? the same summer, summer of 1987. I knew of them, but had never delved into anything heavier than W.A.S.P.’s self-titled. A guy with a circular saw coming out of his crotch seemed pretty heavy to me.

Needless to say my 13-year old brain was rewired that summer and I was officially indoctrinated into the world of speed/thrash metal. I became a quick study, buying Metallica’s back catalog on cassette, as well as being the first in line to grab Megadeth’s So Far, So Good…So What! the Tuesday it came out. I’ll be honest it took me until Seasons In The Abyss to totally lock in to Slayer, but once I did there was no looking back, Satanic Panic be damned!

That leaves Anthrax, a band I was introduced to via their masterpiece Among The Living. Out of all the Big Four bands I was drawn to Anthrax the most. I think maybe it was because they didn’t seem like they were completely messed up on booze, drugs, Satan, and all those other heavy metal talking points. There wasn’t an aura of doom around them, and they seemed to have a sense of humor. They were these crazy New York metalheads that wrote songs based on comic books, Stephen King novels, and David Lynch movies. And their song “Indians” was pretty damn socially relevant for the mid-80s. They loved skate culture and rap music, as well as KISS and the NWOBHM. They looked like dudes I’d run into at the Fun Center Arcade after getting out of a Friday night movie. Jeans, jean jackets, long hair, and probably laughing a lot.

I bought Spreading The Disease, then the day it dropped State of Euphoria. I know Euphoria wasn’t as well received as what came before(Scott Ian talked about it in his memoir in detail), but I still really liked it. “Antisocial”, “Now It’s Dark”, “Be All End All” are great tracks, and the album as a whole still holds up pretty well to my ears.

But in 1990 Anthrax released what I consider the best “Big Four” album of that era, Persistence of Time.

It’s the one record from that time that I consistently revisit and never find anything that sounds dated or tired. It’s a monolith of a metal album. I think Seasons In The Abyss and Rust in Peace are great albums as well from that time, but Persistence of Time beats them to my ears. There’s almost a progressive quality to the songs.

I think the thing that separates Anthrax from the rest is Joey Belladonna’s vocals. He wasn’t a screamer or growler, yet there was a force to his delivery. Like some guy yelling at you as you walk on the sidewalk and you start running, worried this guy is gonna catch you and beat your ass. He sang with authority, but was also very melodic. Even Hetfield wasn’t that melodic, at least until The Black Album which I just can’t listen to anymore(And Justice For All was the last Metallica album I truly obsessed over.)

I got to see Anthrax live back in the summer of 1991 on the Clash of the Titans tour. They toured with Alice In Chains, Megadeth, and Slayer that summer. My brother bought us tickets for like $7.50 each. It was the week of the state fair and they had great deals on concert tickets. We were in the lawn of Deer Creek Amphitheater watching this amazing show. Anthrax came out and opened with “Time” and blew me away. Hearing Charlie Benante playing that double bass part live was unbelievable.

I played that cassette in the deck of my 1977 Chevy Nova for what seemed like two years solid. When Anthrax parted ways with Joey Belladonna I was pretty bummed out, but I gave their album The Sound Of White Noise a shot when they released it. It was the first album with Armored Saint’s vocalist John Bush. It wasn’t bad, but it just didn’t sound like Anthrax to me.

Recently an old high school friend sent me a link to the new Anthrax track “The Edge of Perfection” and mentioned it sounded a lot like Deafheaven, or their brand of black metal. It did, but I thought they still sounded pretty damn good for a bunch of old(er) metalheads. I mean, Joey Belladonna is 65 years old and still belting it out.

Having Anthrax on the brain I cued up Persistence of Time on my walk Sunday morning and man does that still rip. “Time”, “Blood”, “In My World”, “Belly of the Beast”, and “Keep It In The Family” are still top notch tracks. The production doesn’t age it at all, and there’s some serious metal guitar rhythm playing thanks to the great Scott Ian. And I still love their cover of Joe Jackson’s “Got The Time”, and surprisingly it’s not much faster than the original.

I have mad love for the 80s and the metal scene. The Big Four produced some of the most timeless metal albums, and they take me back to high school and Friday nights and road trips to the mall and my older brother sporting an army trench coat with a sea of buttons on it. Anthrax’ Persistence of Time sits on a sky high pedestal for me. It’s got it all; great lyrics, amazing musicianship, top notch vocals, and caffeinated riffage that goes for years and years. It’s an A+ speed metal album from start to finish, and one of the absolute GOATs.