Thrash icons Anthrax are back with "The Edge of Perfection," the second single from their upcoming 12th studio album, Cursum Perficio. The New York metal alliance banged heads with anti-authority stormer "It's For The Kids," but the second cut from Cursum Perficio finds the 'thrax in an altogether more introspective mood.
Despite what the hi-tops and ball-caps cliche propagated by the pizza thrash set would have you believe, this music always had a serious streak. Even Anthrax's '80s ragers often had dark undertones: "Efilnikufesin (N.F.L.)" is a fist-pumping singalong in concert, but the lyrics deal with comedian-musician John Belushi's death from drugs. And "Indians" often comes packaged with frontman Joey Belladonna sporting a Native American headdress, but peel back the layers and the fast-and-heavy classic is a tragic ode to the struggles of the tribes.
The gauntlet was firmly laid down the minute "The Edge of Perfection" came packaged with bullish confidence from guitarist and songwriter Scott Ian. The legendary string-slinger says:
It's the apex predator of Anthrax songs. I think it's the best song we've ever written and the best thing I've ever been a part of creatively.
No pressure then.
Happily, the specter of diminishing returns does not haunt this near-seven minute aural beast. Starting with pensive strums and sympathetic symbols, the mood is set and it is sombre. But then the solemnity gets scythed down by machine-gun drumming and a thick riff, with the opening guitar flourishes reprised over the top. I envision festival fists in the air as the "whoa"'s are echoed back from the headbanger faithful.
Belladonna's unmistakable NYC croon steers us into familiar Anthrax territory, with verses that pleasingly carry a bit more metallic bite than some of the hard rock-leaning cuts on their previous album, For All Kings.
Where "The Edge of of Perfection" excels is in the mood created: bleak, but defiant in both delivery and narrative. It tells the tale of a narrator suffering from addiction, and the toxic self-doubt it spins up will resonate hard with many.
The song sits on the very precipice depicted in the title: the edge of perfection. The occasional lyrical clunker like "Dethroned / By waves of grief that grind me with their teeth" keeps it from a perfect score, but when the heavy metal web is woven this expertly by true masters of the genre, who has room to split hairs? (Particularly when I have about as many on my head as Scott Ian does.)
Anthrax have done what Anthrax do, while upping the stakes emotionally and progressively. A rewarding re-listen, lose yourself in the many subtleties and the horns-to-the-sky eccentricities of this little wonder. Nobody's perfect, but Anthrax really have reached the edge of perfection.
"The Edge of Perfection" is the second single off the upcoming album, Cursum Perficio.
