Okay, still going on this journey to listen to all albums put out by the big four in thrash: Anthrax, Slayer, Metallica and Megadeth.

It sounds counterintuitive and metal fans probably hate this, but I am purposefully doing minimal research on the music and not reading record reviews because I want to judge this music by what I hear, a person not clued into metal stuff.

Slayer fans overwhelmingly hated my opinions on Slayer, but as a long time punk listener I've become impervious to metalheads telling me that I don't know anything about music and insisting that I like this album, that album, my music is trash....etc. In fact, that's one of the reasons junior-high aged me noped out of metal the second I discovered punk music. But that's enough negativity, now onto Anthrax.

First off Anthrax brings up the question of when is a band no longer the same band. Anthrax has Four distinct sounds: The Judas Priest sounding band on the first album; the fun as hell thrashy band with singer Joey Belladonna; the maybe grunge inspired band with singer John Bush; and the thrashier but more subdued Joey Belladonna band that exists now.

The odd thing about this band is that the bassist, drummer and rhythm guitarist have been fairly consistent. The singer and lead guitarists have not been consistent. What happens with Anthrax is that even though the core rhythm section remains, the change in lead singers and lead guitar drastically changes the sound of this band. The John Bush Anthrax and Joey Belladonna Anthrax do not sound like the same band even though drummer Charlie Benante, guitarist Scott Ian and bassist Frank Bello are consistent the entire time. Is lead vocals and lead guitar that dominant in metal as a whole, or just very noticeable for Anthrax? I don't know, but it's hard to believe this is the same band after listening to all of it and maybe it's not. This is a good source of debate.

The other question brought up by listening to Slayer and then listening to Anthrax is what even is thrash? Do you have to shout over thrash or can you sing in high range vocals? Is there a line or is thrash just a made up term by music critics? It's a bit like going back and thinking about whether grunge was actually a genre. Nirvana, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam were labeled grunge but who would lump them in the same genre today?

Another big question brought up by Anthrax is did grunge kill thrash? The shift from Belladonna era to Bush era seems like they're chasing the success of grunge a bit by slowing down, getting a singer with a lower register, putting more grunge adjacent sounds on their albums. I once had a metalhead co-worker talk about how much he hated Nirvana for killing metal, but didn't think much of it at the time. Is Anthrax's shift evidence of that?

Now onto the big question, should you listen to Anthrax if you are not a real metalhead? Yes. Definitely check out some of their records. My personal favorites were the first Belladonna era records: Spreading the Disease, State of Euphoria, Among the Living and Persistence of Time. The outakes record Attack of the Killer B's has the Public Enemy/Anthrax collaboration Bring the Noise and a few other fun tracks. These are energizing records, fast as hell, doesn't take itself to seriously and makes you want to grab a skateboard and attempt some ollies. There's a lot of musical creativity going on these records and they keep it interesting. I also genuinely appreciate this band's commitment to being anti-racist. So now I'm going to briefly rank their albums, but in a grouping of four because in my mind this is four bands calling themselves Anthrax.

Neil Turbin Era