Anthrax
Volume 8: The Threat Is Real

THE REVIEW

They certainly won’t be remembered for this album, but a few words about "Vol-8" can indeed be spared. A unique album in the production of the New York thrashers, which passed completely unnoticed by the "ruthless metal-purist critics", who often cry scandal for much less. As they say: talk about it well or talk about it badly, the important thing is that you talk about it! Here: "Vol-8" was never talked about.

While Metallica, Megadeth, and Slayer have been at the center of fierce controversy for their debatable stylistic turns, Anthrax seems to have been confined to the attic of memories, completely overshadowed by the more famous colleagues. Yet the band of Scott Ian and Charlie Benante never went into hibernation throughout the 90s: in fact, they produced four studio albums, a live album, and two collections of b-sides with unreleased tracks. Despite Joey Belladonna's successor, John Bush (formerly of Armored Saint), being an excellent singer, and "Stomp 442" and "Sound Of White Noise" being two excellent works, Anthrax in their new guise, made of musical reshuffling and lineup changes, did not enter the hearts of the fans. The warm voice of Bush fits well with the new proposal: it's warm, bluesy, powerful, but it doesn't help Anthrax to shine again with the other stars of metal, nor to win over a new audience.

So in 1998, they released the eighth studio album simply titled "Vol8 - The Threat Is Real", with a further softening of the sound, now light years away from the thrash of the 80s, but also from the Groove metal path that seemed to have been irreversibly embarked on in recent times. Let's say that Anthrax is in search of a true identity and in this eighth studio work they throw a nice mixed grill of meat on the fire: you want metal? Here's "Born Again Idiot", "Piss'n Vinegar". You want Hard rock? Check out "Inside Out". Want melodic Rock with a singable chorus? There's "Catharsis". Want the old quirky Anthrax? There's "Cup of Joe" and "604". An obsessive search for a new identity, the desire to carve out some space in any musical context, whatever it might be, even at the cost of mimicking Dire Straits ("Toast To The Extras"). The result is a varied album, fairly inspired, and pleasant to listen to. The tracks are good and catchy, but sales turned out to be an unprecedented flop, and not even the presence of Dimebag Darrell and Phil Anselmo as special guests helped to regain the attention of the metal kids.

In reality, the only threat indicated by the title was that of a possible dissolution of the band (fortunately later avoided). Failed experiment, although with its merits and flaws this album is not to be discarded, the path undertaken by Ian and company just doesn't gather support, and if "Vol-8" has a particularly serious flaw, it's that it proudly bears the Anthrax moniker on the cover.