Anthrax - Spreading The Disease (1985) (2010, Japanese SHM-CD, UICY-94510)

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Anthrax - Spreading The Disease (1985) (2010, Japanese SHM-CD, UICY-94510)

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The only reason I’m giving this album 98 instead of 99 points is because I like “Among the Living” slightly better. Anthrax still plays some NWOBHM inspired speed metal here and it wasn’t until their next album they’d play thrash metal all the way. Having said that I also must add that “Spreading the Disease” is in fact one of the best speed metal albums ever made. The holy threesome “Stand Or Fall”, “Aftershock” and “Gung Ho” are the fastest songs here. “Gung Ho” being the most famous one here because this song also crushed in the live environment. These songs continued where songs like “Panic” and “Deathrider” had left off earlier. In terms of fastness opener “A.I.R.” also had its moments but this song is more based on good breaks, lots of changes in pace, very catchy riffs and highly memorable vocal lines. One of the best songs on the album.

“Madhouse” is a very catchy pounding heavy metal song. The intro as well as the video was pretty enjoyable. Not really thrash or speed metal but too good not to be mentioned and certainly a highlight on this album. But then again, isn’t everything on this album a highlight? Not really, because two songs are extremely good but as genius as the rest. We’re talking “Lone Justice” and “The Enemy” here. Lone justice fall short in terms of impressive riffs or memorable vocal lines and is a song that was probably written in their Fistful Of Metal days since it’s still a bit mainstream metal. But hey, it’s a good song! “The Enemy” is slightly heavier and has its catchy moments. The best heavy pounding song here is “Medusa”, based around a fairly simple main riff in F# and E this song is eerie, anthemic and has a very strong chorus. The song picks up some speed on the “Seize, appease, deceive, die” section. Leaves us with “Armed and Dangerous” which was released earlier on an EP. This song mixes slightly Maiden-inspired epic tendencies with speed metal and is a very dynamic and diverse song with some of the best riffs on the album. This song and “A.I.R.” truly are the compositional masterpieces of the album.

The new boys Frank and Joey are more than decent. A lot more actually. Frank Bello has his own type of playing and apart from keeping the rhythm extremely well he plays enough fills and licks to stand out. Joey sings more melodic than his predecessor Neil Turbin but he does not fail to deliver on the faster more aggressive songs. His vocal style proved to be the finishing touch to the music and with him singing the songs the earlier shortcomings of Neil Turbin become really obvious. The perfect balance between Dan Spitz and Scott Ian on guitars is remarkable. Scott plays his rhythm parts with ease and extremely tight. This gives Dan Spitz more room to excel on leads. His solos at times almost sound neurotic and manic on this album. Just check out “Gung Ho” for instance! The production was good enough. It was a lot better than Fistful Of Metal and had a lot more power and crunchy guitars. Of course it could have been better but I’ve grown accustomed to this sound over the years and it even has sentimental value. Not much to complain here then. Even the two lesser interesting songs are still good enough and an important part of the majesty that is called “Spreading the Disease”. So god damn good, so classic.