Anthrax: Sound of White Noise

Anthrax: Sound of White Noise

1993

Elektra

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Potters Field  2. Only  3. Room for One More  4. Packaged Rebellion  5. Hy Pro Glo  6. Invisible  7. 1000 Points of Hate  8. Black Lodge  9. C₁₁ H₁₇ N₂ O₂ S Na  10. Burst  11. This Is Not an Exit

.SAY IT AIN'T SO, RIP MAGAZINE! SAY IT AIN'T SO!!!

Joey Belladonna leaving Anthrax?!?! Details on page 32??!?!?!!  I think this was the Zayn Malik leaves One Direction of my jean-jacketed generation..Joey was the golden-voiced everyman! There was no other Thrash vocalist even remotely like him! Who could possibly replace him? WHO?!?!?!?

As someone who followed this saga closely back in '92, I can tell you in all certainty that no one knew what to make of the news that John Bush was going to be the new Anthrax vocalist...Sure,we all liked Armored Saint's "Symbol of Salvation" but outside of them both being metal vocalists, Joey and John had nothing in common...Would Anthrax return to a more "Fistful of Metal" power-metal approach? Add to this, interviews from the era featured Scott Ian talking about how the new Anthrax album would be influenced by Depeche Mode and shit...Uh oh...

Turns out the direction they took was a fairly obvious one...Since the grunge movement was in full swing, the band decided to look to that scene for inspiration, particularly the slower, narcotic drawl of
Alice in Chains...I actually hear a lot of "Symbol of Salvation" in this too...Yea, think "Symbol of Salvation" stripped of its remaining metal ham...Alice in Chains with some bombast...I can still catch a faint whiff of "Persistence of Time"-era Anthrax on a couple of tracks ("Packaged Rebellion" in particular) but I'd say there's very little classic Anthrax left in this, which I actually consider to be a smart move...You just can't compare this to previous Anthrax material...It's apples and oranges...You cannot imagine Joey getting all moody and Twin Peaks-y on "Black Lodge"...You can't imagine Joey yarling his way through the creeping "This is Not an Exit"...You cannot imagine Joey riding the tidal wave of grunge on "Only"...

Trouble was, Anthrax tried so hard to outdo themselves on this one that they were never able to recapture this high...

I remember hearing the Stomp 442 album by Manasses and being so underwhelmed by its boring dryness that I swore off Anthrax for a great many years...Friends would occasionally show me the latest Anthrax which similarly fell flat to me...I hear Joey came back in recent years, but I haven't gotten around to any of those albums yet...

So, I'll continue to remember "Sound of White Noise" where it seemed for a moment that Anthrax would be able to successfully navigate the 90's and all its unwashed flannel-ness...A band reinventing itself to keep up with the trends and actually pulling it off...I'm docking a star for the use of that overused, "This is a Juhhhh-ney into sound..." sample, but I still say it's a far cut above most other post '91 metal, which to me, was one of the saddest, most barren landscapes in pop music history...I still have nightmares about this stuff...

BLAHH!!!

BLAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, let's not dwell on what lied ahead...Let's take "Sound of White Noise" on its own merits...Here's "Packaged Rebellion" by Aunt Thracks...Enjoy...