ANTHRAX — Spreading The Disease (review)

ANTHRAX — Spreading The Disease album cover Album · 1985 · Thrash Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
AtomicCrimsonRush
This is the first Anthrax album for me and one of the first thrash albums with some of the most incredible riffs I have heard. It is a raw sound the band generates and a little under produced but it doesn’t matter such is the power of the metal. The riffs are killer on A.I.R. with its anarchic lyrics belted out by Belladonna, telling us “you’re no good, misunderstood, …. So high and mighty though much too blind to see”. At the time I could relate to this myself and I soaked it all in though I still don’t know what AIR stands for (Anthrax Is Rock?)

1984-1988 were the years when metal was king and every young male teen was heavily into it. Anthrax certainly made an indelible mark with this 1985 classic. Madhouse and the drilling riff heavy Armed and dangerous were essential listening for thrash addicts but I was really taken with the moderate tempo and scratch riffing of Medusa in particular. The lyrics are unforgettable “Seize, appease, deceive, die… Medusa, she's staring at you… with her eyes…Evil witch, cast her spell, seducing you, She'll take you to the very depths of hell, cannot move, no eyes to see, a statue now, For all eternity Medusa laughs at you And you're her slave.”

Not everything on this album rocks as awesome as these tracks specifically the messy speedy Gung Ho, but it is the raucous crunching power metal of the guitars of Spitz and Ian and those pounding drums that draws you in.

A great album and one of Anthrax’s best, before they inundated us with that awful rap crap. Anthrax hit the nail on the head with this early look at the thrash craze.
Share this review

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

MMA TOP 5 Metal ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
Master of Puppets Thrash Metal
METALLICA
Buy this album from our partners
Paranoid Heavy Metal
BLACK SABBATH
Buy this album from our partners
Moving Pictures Hard Rock
RUSH
Buy this album from our partners
Powerslave NWoBHM
IRON MAIDEN
Buy this album from our partners
Rising Heavy Metal
RAINBOW
Buy this album from our partners

New Metal Artists

New Metal Releases

Hin helga kvöl Atmospheric Sludge Metal
SÓLSTAFIR
Buy this album from MMA partners
The Cycles of Suffering Black Metal
BURIAL OATH
Buy this album from MMA partners
Facilis Descensus Averno Death Metal
SAEVUS FINIS
Buy this album from MMA partners
Merciless Crossover Thrash
BODY COUNT
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Metal Online Videos

More videos

New MMA Metal Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Metal News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us