Album Review: Anthrax – Cursum Perficio
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
I’m going to guess that most people reading this will not need an introduction to New York thrash legends, Anthrax, so I’ll cut the preamble. Save to say that it’s more than twenty-years since the ‘Classic’ line-up reunited and a decade since the last album, For All Kings. Anticipation is high after this ten-year gap and album number twelve, Cursum Perficio, comes with a considerable weight of expectation on its shoulder.
The Latin title translates roughly to ‘my journey has come to an end’, a playful title that suggests this might be Anthrax’s last record, but that notion is scorched by the band themselves, who are quick to offer the alternative explanation that all Anthrax roads have led here, and listening to Cursum Perrficio front-to-back, it’s a title that makes perfect sense.
In May the band released the first single, It’s For the Kids, which found Anthrax going back to those glorious thrashing days of the Eighties; sharp buzzsaw riffs, courtesy of Scott Ian and a former Shadows Fall six-stringer, Jonathan Donais, ultra-catchy bouncing chorus and Joey’s familiar barks make you want to grab your Bermudas and forget the last forty-years have happened. Companion this is NYC’93, a love-letter to the hey-days of their hometown’s Hardcore scene. More razor-sharp lines and urban influence make this a classic Anthrax-thrasher, with its message unity it acts as a time machine back to the first two records. The teenager in you will love this, but I’m reminded of the t-shirt which bears the warning “Heart says pit, knees say sit”. Sage advice.
Of course, as the band’s legacy grew and developed over time, so did their sound, and the record reflects this through Watch It Go’s fierce galloping and bouncing riffs that allow Joey Belladonna to express his ire and rage at the current state of America. My Victory is some classic latter-era ‘thrax, and T.O.M.B. turns the heavy groove way up high, revels in the perfect sync of Messrs Ian and Donias, all enabled by Charlie and Frank’s sure rhythmic foundations.
The album opens with the brief intro of Persistence of Memory – a play on 1990’s Persistence of Time, perhaps? – and goes into The Long Goodbye. Coming to Cursum Perifico after It’s For the Kids, and this track will knock you off kilter a little; it’s dark and serious, in the vein of the Persistence album, maintains the band’s signature sound but in a more mature way. It’s still filled with big, solid chugs and massive percussion, but has melodic, introspective bridges and wouldn’t be out of place on a Bush-era record. It was only as the song came to an end that I wondered whether there was some consideration of dementia or Alzheimer’s at work here: they are, after all, referred to at times as the long goodbye.
Most recent single, Everybody’s Got a Plan, goes for a retro-sound and embraces it Rock n’ Roll heart, small guitar fills feel quite playful at times, and go a long way to make the heavier moments even heavier. This is another track were Anthrax’s party-band image is challenged through righteous indignation at the genocide on the streets, in the lyric: “the sharpest knives in the hands of children.”
Infectious has a creeping bass line from Frank and goes for a slower and doomier feel. This is no longer Anthrax being metal thrashing mad, but mature and small-p political. Lyrics mention Captain Trips – the biological disease, engineered in a lab, that wipes out the global population in Stephen King’s The Stand. Among the Living has already used this King monster tome as a point of reference, but here it seems to have a more-real world and less fantastical meaning. Couple that with mention of Rorschach tests and the lyric “tell me what you see” and it’s not difficult to join a few dots.
As a disclaimer, the interpretation of the lyrics of both Everybody’s Got a Plan and Infectious are entirely my own and are not based on any opinion from elsewhere.
The two longest songs on offer are the second single, The Edge of Perfection and the title track itself, both running above six-minutes and both showing exactly what the creative engine of Anthrax is capable. Edge… opens with mellow guitars before giving ground to some of the most aggressive music Cursum Perficio contains. I kind you not, but the early sections would not be out of place on an Emperor record, yet that’s just the beginning. Charlie shows his worth here keeping the plethora of sounds and styles cohesive and running smoothly. It’s vast and edgy, schizophrenic you may say, but it never loses focus on its large range of ideas. The title-track seems to take the fatalistic idea of its translation and construct a mature contemplation of the nature of existence.
Heavy stuff indeed, but topics that only a band like Anthrax could successfully deliver.
Scott is reported to have said that in the same way Fistful of Metal and Spreading the Disease had to be made in order to be able to write Among the Living, so Cursum Perficio is the natural evolution from Worship Music and For All Kings. He went on to compare this new record to that 1987 classic.
Don’t come to Cursum Perficio expecting Among part II, rather it’s a mature album made by a respected legacy band that isn’t trying to recreate their glory days, instead they are creating the music they are artists have naturally evolved to make.
I know a few huge Anthrax fans who are chopping at the bit to get their hands on this record, and I can safely say Cursum Perficio ranks among the band’s most accomplished works. Looking forward to hearing what they think.
For all the latest news, reviews, interviews across the heavy metal spectrum follow THE RAZORS’S EDGE on facebook, twitter and instagram.
