ANTHRAX - Cursum Perficio

A complicated career, that of Anthrax, who have now reached their twelfth album with "Cursum Perficio". Ten years have passed since "For All Kings", and a full 15 since their unexpected late-career comeback, "Worship Music". The fourth quarter of the Big Four of thrash-metal (the others being Metallica, Slayer and Megadeth) deliver a return that's anything but a given, one they'd been working on since at least 2018 and began recording in 2023.

Once again, they play to their own template: precise, cutting, powerful metal, without excess violence. The glorious wall of guitars on "The Long Goodbye", with Scott Ian still in great form, and Joey Belladonna's stentorian voice, crystalline and powerful, feel like a homecoming for any metalhead. The faster, more dynamic "It's For The Kids", the lead single, harks back to the fun, unhinged romps of the Eighties.

Having staked out the territory, along come the melodic, granite-hard riffs of "Everybody's Got A Plan" and the more epic, complex "The Edge Of Perfection", somewhere between Iron Maiden and near-prog-metal stretches. Few surprises, clearly, since even the cadenced groove of "Infectious" is an old acquaintance for a band that helped forge the crossover between metal and everything else at the turn of the millennium. Besides, the rhythm section — Charlie Benante on drums and Frank Bello on bass — adds power and three-dimensionality even when the songwriting feels less convincing: where the composition creaks, the sheer drive of the rhythm comes to the rescue. With a touch more cynicism, we might even say that craft compensates for inspiration, especially in the second half of the tracklist, but that would risk being ungenerous.

"Cursum Perficio" borrows its title from a famous Latin phrase, found on a tile at the place where Marilyn Monroe died. It means something like "I have completed my journey", and although the band have muddied the waters a bit with their own interpretations, it feels like an honest title. When "My Victory" draws to a close, after almost 54 minutes, a touch of metalhead nostalgia creeps in: this might be the last time we hear a new Anthrax album. After all, perhaps the time has come for them too.

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21/10/2026