Review by Daniel for Anthrax - Persistence of Time (1990)

My revisit to New York thrash metal legends Anthrax’s 1988 fourth album “State of Euphoria” a couple of weeks ago left me feeling a little surprised to be honest. That album was my entry point with Anthrax back in 1989 & has subsequently seen me maintaining some fairly significant feelings of nostalgia over the years but this revisit saw reality finally setting in as I discovered that “State of Euphoria” is not everything I’d convinced myself it was. 1985’s “Spreading The Disease” (my personal favourite) & 1987’s “Among The Living” were both undeniable classics but the follow-up saw Anthrax rushing things a bit with the result being that it sounds a little undercooked in comparison. The song-writing & hooks aren’t as strong as we have a right to expect from such an esteemed member of the Big Four with the album relying too heavily on singalong choruses to win their fanbase over. This mission was only partially successful & it resulted in “State of Euphoria” coming across as a decent but inessential inclusion in Anthrax’s discography. This discovery certainly caught me off guard & left me wondering what else I may have been overstating. For that reason, I decided to follow-up with a similar revisit to Anthrax’s 1990 fifth full-length “Persistence of Time”, a release that I purchased on CD on the day of release & played to death over the next year or so.

“State of Euphoria” had seen Anthrax starting to hint at a more serious approach to their music with the lyrics to several tracks taking a much more hard-hitting thematic direction than we’d seen from the band in years gone by. The lack of substance & attention to detail in some of the song-writing & chorus hooks did very little to take advantage of it though which was part of the reason that the album has proven to be less popular than it’s more highly regarded older siblings. “Persistence of Time” sees Anthrax rectifying that failing with a darker & more mature sounding record than we’d heard from the band to the time. The subject matter is confronting & in your face while the song-writing is more developed & less basic. In fact, there’s a level of consistency to “Persistence of Time” that greatly exceeds that of its predecessor with only the very popular Joe Jackson cover version “Got The Time” failing to get me fully engaged. The rest of the tracklisting is rock-solid though &, unlike “State of Euphoria”, we actually get a few genuine Anthrax classics here this time (see “Time”, “Belly Of The Beast”, “One Man Stands” &, to a slightly lesser extent, “Keep It In The Family”).

Perhaps one the reasons that “Persistence of Time” isn’t as highly praised as Anthrax’s mid-80’s classics is the tempo as the band don’t often hit top speed, instead opting for chunky mid-paced chuggers quite often. In saying that though, there’s no hint at moving away from thrash just yet as Scott Ian’s devastating rhythm guitar performance never veers far away from the thrash metal model. Ian’s thick guitar tone doesn’t do him any harm either & shows him to be one of the premier exponents of his craft so I’d have to suggest that these two elements make the album noticeably more appealing than it might otherwise have been. The other major improvement is in the song-writing as it’s clear that Joey Belladonna & co. had worked long & hard on making sure that every transition & drum roll were perfectly placed & executed. Drummer Charlie Benante & lead guitarist Dan Spitz are both in awesome form on this record too which makes it really hard for anyone to question Anthrax’s Big Four credentials in my opinion.

If you only like Anthrax for their silly nature & fast, thrashy moshpit numbers then “Persistence of Time” is possibly not the album for you. If you’re looking for something a little less obvious & with a touch more depth then it might just be in your ball park though. Has nostalgia seen me overrating this record? I actually don’t think so. I think I just have a penchant for a darker & less obvious style of thrash than Anthrax have pushed at times & can appreciate all of the hard work they’ve put into the record. Fans of Overkill, Nuclear Assault & Metallica should not hesitate to check it out.