Among The Living - Anthrax

Many fans cite 'Among the Living' as Anthrax's finest almost-hour, and it's indisputably their thrashiest and most energetic offering. Moving on from the enjoyable but fairly dull heavy metal of 'Spreading the Disease,' Joey Belladonna's high wails are retained while guitarists Dan Spitz and Scott Ian begin the Anthrax trademark of simple, heavy and incessantly catchy riffs repeated ad nauseam throughout every song. The repetition of this album is one of the reasons I don't rate it quite as highly as their later 'Persistence of Time,' but for providing a mix of great simple thrash anthems, some harder offerings for the live crowd and some more interesting endeavours ...  Read the complete review

For me personally, apart from Metallica's flagship 'Master of Puppets, 'Among the Living' is the greatest metal album of the 80's. Whilst not having the same critical respect as Metallica, or the cutting edge seriousness of Slayer, Anthrax concentrated on one thing, entertainment. The vocals of Joey Belladonna may not really match the music behind him (He sounds more like the singer in a glam band than a thrash band) but the guitar work of Scott Ian and the drumming of Charlie Benante more than make up for it. Things start at 100mph with the title track - Based on the Stephen King novel 'The Stand' its a no-nonsense, furious introduction to the ...  Read the complete review

Most of the things I review I like. That's why I review them, to tell everyone out there how mush I like stuff. Not this. I am a metal fan, and rock, I like stuff from Rainbow and Deep Purple, Queen, Iron Maiden (well most of it) through to thrash and even goth and black metal. One of my biggest gripes with the heavier end of the rock/ metal market is the appalling vocals so often and unnecessarily used in 99% of the songs, ok it's my biggest gripe, definately. Well this album has better vocals than that. There I've said something positive now on with the review: This is awful, the music is unoriginal and the lyrics are weak, there is completely ...  Read the complete review

1990 was an interesting year in Metal. Glam rock was in a downward spiral, and metal itself was going through big changes. Hip hop was becoming the dominant force in music, and metal was left scrambling to find its place or risk going the way of disco. Some acts thrived, such as Slayer with their release "Seasons in the Abyss", and others began to falter, such as Metallica with their so-called "Black Album" only joking i love it really. One such act that thrived, however, was Anthrax. Released in 1990, "Persistence of Time" is probably the best Anthrax album ever, but also one of the best metal albums of all time. All along, Anthrax had been ...  Read the complete review

So this came out just before the grunge era was about to start. This is Anthrax's best album, more serious metal than Among The Living, and just before john bush became vocalist . The drum and bass non-stop thumpings are here, over plain old great mosh thash riffs.This is the anthrax album to own without a doubt. Joey Belladonna gives the performance of his career. Own this then know who was responsible for the formation of the Thrash scene along with ...  Read the complete review