The 12th studio album from New York’s members of Thrash Metals’ Big 4 – here are the thoughts of Riccardo from The Metal Bar.
10 years after delivering the monumental ‘For All Kings’, Anthrax are back with their third album since reuniting with vocalist Joey Belladonna.
Where the first album back together, Worship Music, had some outstanding moments (looking at you ‘The Devil You Know’) it sounded like a collection of a lot of ideas from over a period of time. ‘For All Kings’ was a different beast entirely, it was darker, heavier and a little more twisted than we’d heard from Anthrax before, maybe the influence of Shadows Fall guitarist Jonathan Donais on the sound.
The 12th studio album, Cursum Perficio, almost feels like the follow up to 1990’s The Persistence of Time, which also just happened to be Belladonnas last album with the band before being replaced by Armored Saint singer John Bush.
With the production values of 2026 but the feel of Anthrax at their creative peak, everything is built out of the concrete foundations laid down by Charlie Benante & Frank Bello. Woven over the top are undulating riffs that weave together the wall of noise and the camouflage hooks that reveal themselves gradually. The more you listen the more the earworm bores deeper in your temporal lobe.
Belladonna completes the package with a performance that veers between a soaring Ronnie James Dio influenced tenor and a sneering NYC hardcore drenched snarl.
The album opens with ‘Persistence of Memory’, a cinematic instrumental opener complete with piano before transitioning into a signature Scott Ian riff and ‘The Long Goodbye’, ‘feels like the memory’s over’ is the vocal refrain that makes up the chorus and Bello’s bass line drives this alone into an anthemic chorus that has stadium crowd participation written all over it.
‘It’s For The Kids’ follows and shows the band have lost none of the social consciousness they showed on songs like ‘Who Cares Wins’ from ‘State of Euphoria’ back in the day.
Another New York native may have had an influence on the ‘Everybody’s Got a Plan’ with the opening lines paraphrasing Mike Tyson’s quote “Everybody’s got a plan. That’s until they get punched in the face”. As you would expect from that line this one pulls no punches, with a galloping Maidenesque intro and groove laden vocal delivery.
‘The Edge of Perfection’ is next up and maybe the closest sounding to anything from “For All Kings”, a clean strummed open riff that lulls you into a false sense of security before opening up like an artillery barrage on the senses with a discordant guitar line underneath. The band use the dynamics beautifully on this one dropping the instrumentation out to give Belladonna a pulpit from which to deliver a sermon before crunching back in and driving the message home
“Self-aware to the point of obliteration,
A psychopath’s luck, the mind sways
The cold and hard truth, with so much to lose
Nobody’s coming to save you”.
It’s the closest Anthrax comes to classical arrangements with several movements linked throughout.
‘Infectious’ is just that from the moment it kicks in, a change of pace and a hypnotic groove that has your head nodding along before you’re aware it has happened.
‘NYC93’ is up next and clearly an acknowledgement and tribute to the band’s hometown and its influential hardcore scene where bands like Agnostic Front and Cro-Mags started to bridge the punk and metal divide.
The title track, ‘Cursum Perficio’ is Latin for “My journey has come to an end” and that theme is to the fore in the chorus with the lines
“Cause now it’s over,
The journey’s over,
And now it’s over,
Your journey’s over”
This is an epic track and it’s apparent why this song gave the album its title, it features a huge vocal performance as Belladonna gets to stretch those Dio style vocalines and possibly the best solo on the record as well.
The standout track for me (over the first half a dozen listens) has been ‘T.O.M.B’ (Target On My Back). Crushingly heavy with groove and more than a hint of Judas Priest influence. Charlie Benante’s playing on this dictates the swing and conducts proceedings like Michael Kamen in his pomp.
‘Watch It Go ‘is absolute balls to the wall from the off and doesn’t relent, the band locking in like some sort of industrial wrecking machine that drops down into a dirge like stomp before kicking back into a furious finish.
Rounding out the album ‘My Victory’ is a perfect closer, a driving heavy hitting number that has Anthrax out Anthraxing themselves – “if you want to, if you need to” will be stuck in your head for days.
Cursum Perficio is a brilliant Anthrax record, fans of the late 80’s early 90’s stuff will not be disappointed but new fans are in for a hell of a treat as well.
9 out 10 Goats
