923. Anthrax / For All Kings. 2016. 3/5

There was a growing sense of excitement when Anthrax finally announced they were releasing a new album. It had been four years since the release of their return opus with Joey Belladonna on vocals (five years by the time it was released), and while that album had been well liked, there was always the feeling that it was just the start of the reboot, and that better was to come once they had toured this album for awhile, and then sat down to write new material. There was unfinished business, and this new album was going to set it all right, and be the kickstart that has been missing since the bust up with John Bush well over a decade ago. It all felt good in the lead up. This was the time.

The first thing that came across to me on the first listens I had of the new album was that there seemed to be a lot that sounded like it should have been on the last album. "You Gotta Believe" has a very similar sound musically to that of "Fight 'Em Till You Can't" from Worship Music. "Monster in the End" holds the same kind of melody through the chorus that is prevalent on "In the End" from the previous album. On "All of Them Thieves", Joey's melody lines are the same sort that he used on the last album. "Suzerain" again vocally sounds like material from the previous album. If it was just one song, or pieces here and there, then I could've let it go and moved past it. But these flashes kept coming at me as I moved through the album, and didn't fade over time. In fact, perhaps the only song that hits me slightly differently is "Breathing Lightning", but it reminds me so much of a Stryper song its not funny. In fact, I can't get past the similarity between it and "Makes Me Wanna Sing" off Soldiers Under Command. Not lyrically of course, but musically the similarities are quite stunning.
Overall this shouldn't be a problem, but really, there is a five year break between releases. I'm not suggesting that it has to be a completely new sound for every album, and that vocally everything must sound completely different from the previous release. But the similarities are to me too startling to ignore. No one wants Worship Music PART 2. We want For All Kings. The drum rolls all seem to synch up between the material. The riffs just feel as though they have been continued from the previous song. Joey's vocals are in a similar tone most of the way through the album. Perhaps they need to be now to operate, and if that's the case then fine. But there is no change in desire or emotion or drive. The parameters are set and that's what they sit between.
This is not a bad album by any stretch of the imagination. There are things about it though that hold me back from loving it. The tempo throughout doesn't seem to change much. It isn't outright thrash and speed like the old days, and it isn't that mid-tempo range that many bands of this generation began to fall back into - it is somewhere between those two, which isn't bad except that it tends to sit there for the entire album. More than anything else, I just waited for the songs to grow on me, for them to become... better. In the whole time I've had the album, that hasn't happened. I LIKE the songs, but I just can't seem to love them, to get to the stage where I am singing along with them.

I know I probably need to hear this album more than I have to be able to get my radar set properly on it, but the problem with that is that it just isn't generating that kind of interest in me. It isn't demanding repeat playings. I come to the end of the album, and more or less look for the next album to put on, rather than thinking "damn, this new album is so awesome I think I'll listen to it all over again!" And it is that reaction that drives me to write the review I'm writing for it, because if an album is giving off those vibes at this early stage of its purchase, then it probably doesn't bode well for it in the long run. I may well end up feeling differently about For All Kings in the long run, but for now, it doesn't have the hooks required to raise it into the ranks of the indispensable.

Rating:   "Young blood of the old blood, for all kings are through"  3/5