648. Anthrax / Anthems [EP]. 2013. 2.5/5

Anthrax have not been into the high output of albums in recent years, having only released two studio albums in the fifteen years since 1998's Volume 8: The Threat is Real. That's tough for the fans, who not only want to see their favourite bands live, but want to hear new songs from them as well. We've had live albums and compilation albums from the band, but little new stuff.
Following on from 2011's Worship Music we now have another EP, this one full of cover songs that the band has put together, no doubt as a further effort to appease fans such as myself who are actually looking for new material, and allow them to keep touring which, let's face it, will make them more money in this day and age than trying to sell albums.

The song list was chosen by the members of the band, and consists of band's whose base era was the 1970's, and though not metal bands by any stretch of the imagination, their hard rock roots no doubt influenced more bands than just Anthrax as the decade crossed over into the 1980's. From a listening and reviewing point of view, it is a difficult thing to hold on to, when you don't have any great love of the bands or songs covered on the album. I can appreciate that bands like Rush, Boston, Cheap Trick and Journey have a large fan base, and that their work is see and heard as an influence upon others, but really, I just don't really like them. What i can appreciate here is the effort by the band to cover these songs properly and with the attention to detail required to pay homage to the original songs and artists. They sound great, whether you enjoy the songs or not.
For me, the two stand outs are AC/DC's "T.N.T." which sounds great, and a brilliant version of Thin Lizzy's "Jailbreak". If Thin Lizzy really wanted a replacement for Phil Lynott's vocals, then Joey Belladonna's audition on this song is top class.
Filling out the remainder of the disc is "Crawl" from the aforementioned Worship Music as well as a remix of the same song.

As with all cover albums, this one will retain the interest of the listener for a number of spins in the CD player, until they realise that they should either just go back to the originals by the real bands, or that throwing on Among the Living again would give a better indication of the real love of Anthrax.