State of Euphoria

by

Anthrax

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True thrashy, speedy, comical, humorous thrash metal!!! Anthrax may not have been as evil and fast and angry as Slayer or Sepultura or Sodom but they were just as good. The song "Antisocial" should be a thrash anthem right up there with classics like Slayer's "Raining Blood", Sepultura's "Inner Self", and Sodom's "Nuclear Winter". Anthrax was never as deadly of a band they took the more melodic end of the 80's thrash scene but they certainly weren't a commercial or trendy band. This proves that you dont have to be evil as hell (although that doesnt hurt) to be a succesful thras band. Anthrax!!

As much as I love Anthrax, it pains me to give this album a mere three stars, but dammit, it just doesn't deserve anything better than that. It's really kinda a shock how flawed this album is, considering how absolutely great the 2 albums just before it, and the 1 after it were, but it's definitely got some major problems, and is not in the same league as those other albums. Well actually, it's got one major problem, which is enough to cripple the album: the vocals are TERRIBLE. Joey is definitely off his game here, and he doesn't sound himself, but that's not the real problem. The real problem is that they came up with an absolutely wretched batch of vocal lines. Simply put, every song here except 'Be All, End All' and 'Antisocial' has at least one very prominent and very grating vocal line.(and plenty of them have more than that) The examples are endless: 'Don't think about anything' pretty much all of 'Make me Laugh', 'Your Mama's calling you' the verses to 'Now it's Dark' the chorus to 'Schism', and so on. The obnoxious vocals are particularly upsetting as they often result in a very grating, obnoxious chorus. Vox typically don't matter that much in thrash, so you can sometimes overlook them, but they were always more imporant in Anthrax's work, and much of the work here is just to irritating to be ignored.

This is particularly sad, because most other aspects of this album are pretty good, if not necessarily up to Anthrax's standards. 'Be All, End All' and 'Antisocial' are both great songs. Very catchy and melodic yet still very crunchy and intense. Thus, they're just classic Anthrax.(though 'Antisocial' is a cover, of course). And, the riffwork on this album is pretty solid. Not as good as Anthrax's other stuff, though. It's sorta a transitional album, so the riffs have lost some of the melodicism and bounciness you'd find in older Anthrax, but haven't yet got the full intensity, variety and complexity that you'd find on 'Persistence of Time'. But they're still pretty good, and could've made a very good thrash album. Charlie gives a nice performance too, as always. He's always been just about the most energetic, most propulsive drummer around, and he doesn't disappoint here. Still, they can't overcome the very rarely inspired, often irritating vocals.

Also, it has just about the most hideous cover art imaginable.

This album is still somewhat enjoyable, as evinced by my 3 star rating, but it definitely isn't truly mandatory for either the thrash fan in general, or the Anthrax fan in particular.