Following the tour to promote the album, guitarist Dan Spitz left the band. Spitz was already a talented creator of high end watches and jewellery of that volition, and he finally came to the conclusion that he could make more money and spend more time at home by following that vocation. Spitz had been in the band since the very early days, and his departure was a loss for the band and for fans alike. Spitz was not immediately replaced. Paul Crook was brought in to be the hired gun for the band’s live shows, but for the new album, several guests were brought on board to participate and help out. Crook himself played lead guitar on four tracks, while Pantera’s Dimebag Darrell Abbott, a friend of the band, also contributed. In the main, it was drummer Charlie Benante, who had taken on a bigger role in the writing of the music for the album, who also contributed more guitars to the recording.
Having already made an album that not only lifted them above the pack in the new grunge and alt metal world that came with the first half of the 1990’s decade, Anthrax now had the opportunity to push that even further with their follow up to John Bush’s first album helming the vocals for the band, with the album “Stomp 442”.
Ripping in from the outset, the more industrialised sound of Anthrax’s emerging and evolving sound comes at you in the form of the opening track “Random Acts of Senseless Violence”. While there are similarities to what came on the previous album, this song crashes out of the speakers at you with a wall of noise that announces itself in the harshest way possible. Drums, guiatrs and vocals all at 11 in the mix and grating into the combination. Paul Crook gets his first crack on a laed solo here and is perhaps the biggest point of difference, with the new sound post-Dan Spitz carrying the majority of the sound vibe. The first single from the album comes next in “Fueled”, falling back to the more familair course taken on the previous album, along with plenty of opportunity for Ian and Bello to bring their backing vocals into the mix. The video for the song told a story that aligns almost parallel to Stephen King’s “Christine” with the band playing alongisde. It’s a hardcore addition alongside the opening track, and mirrors the direction Anthrax have decided to take this album in the mid-1990's and what is happening musically around them at the time. The arrival of “King Size” also means that the groove has arrived. Here is where Anthrax begin to showcase where their musical varieties are trending towards, with the rhythm groove and Bush’s vocals mixing the same depths. The perpetually distinctive guitar soloing from Dimebag Darrell cuts through the middle of the track, in many ways topping off the fact that it almost feels though this is an Anthrax/Pantera crossover track. “Riding Shotgun" brings more of the same with the hard riffing rhythm guitar and bass line, complemented by dual solo lead breaks from Crook and Dimebag again, perpetuating a stolen promise. Bush’s vocals hold their distinctive line which does give this song more of an authentic sound rather than moving down the path towards other bands of the era.
“Perpetual Motion” is an interesting title because the riffing here seems to stick to its middle ground and not move towards anything more exciting or for that matter less exciting. “In a Zone" sticks with the program, that mid-tempo hard riffing that blows into overdrive for Crook’s short and sweet solo spot before cranking back into the safe and solid riff to the end of the track. Neither of these are bad songs, nor are they average songs. But they do tend to draw again on the prevailing winds of the Pantera-led groove metal style which is further drawing Anthrax away from the style that made them the band everyone followed in the 1980’s. The pull back to a more recognisable tracking comes with the second single “Nothing”. It Isn't thrash express, but it does draw back memories of past glories and also a more recognisable riff similar to songs from Bush’s first album with the band. The tempo again remains in the mid range, and is driven mostly by Bush’s vocals power than anything outstanding in the music.
“American Pompeii” drives back into that almost mid-slow tempo, the alt metal riffing and Pantera-like zoning and free-forming vocal delivery from Bush. It’s a track that doesn’t have anything spectacular to define itself away from the bulk of the album. Riff, vocal, riff, vocal, and then the song sounds like it's about to finish before it comes back and goes again for another 45 seconds or so. “Drop the Ball” follows along similar lines, almost a long slow tempo drone of industrialised guitar riff and John chanting the vocals out almost robotically through the entire track. Once again you are left looking for something that jumps out to define the track, to make it a different proposition from some of the songs that come before it, and there is nothing there. “Tester” at least starts out with a different tone, one that tosses up a different approach, and the trade of solos from Charlie and Scott here on this track actually prove to be a winner.
“Bare” is the closing track, one that to me is just unbearably incorrect and unforgivable. Here is an album that has built itself upon the modern sound of heavy metal in the mid-1990's, with loud hard strum guitars that base themselves with a melody or harmony, just raw and aggressive for the most part, and yet the final track is with percussive bongo and clear guitar, five and a half minutes that builds to some energy in the final throes of the song, but ends the album as a damp squib. Lyrically the song shows the passion of the subject matter, but musically and as a finale to an Anthrax album it is a terrible disappointment.
As has been commented on other podcast episodes through the years, not everyone was a fan of John Bush taking over the lead vocals for Anthrax back in 1992, and not everyone was a fan of the band’s first album with him on board, “Sound of White Noise”. I wasn’t one of those naysayers. In fact I loved that album from the very first listen. Both the music and songs and Bush’s singing. For me, it suited the environment we were in at that time. Anthrax had gotten serious in their tone, and John Bush was the right man for the time. And as a result, I was looking forward to what they might come up with next.
When this was released, I bought it on the same day as five other albums that were released during this time, which meant that it had to fight against those albums for its requisite listens. And in a way that was good – for all of those October and November 1995 album releases. Because it meant I wasn't just settling in with one album, I was moving between them, which gave them all the space they needed to grow on me. And that helped a lot with “Stomp 442”.
I know on this first rotation of the album, I was expecting and hoping for too much. I had built the album up too much after what had preceded it. To this point in time, I at least didn’t believe Anthrax had a bad album, and I was really pushing for this to be at that same exacting standard. And, for the times, and amongst the other albums I was listening to, it didn’t pass that test. I was disappointed and eventually put it back on the shelves. It came out again a few months later, when the band toured Australia, and I also picked up the Australian Tour EP of the single “Nothing”, which had also rekindled my faith. And on this second go around I found the album much more to my liking, with the expectations it had originally been tied down with having been released. It was of its time, and by now I had wrapped my head around that.
Having pulled it off the shelves again this week, it has been an interesting experience. No streaming platform has it on its books, so it is only at home that I have been able to listen to it again, which I have done on several afternoons. And I have enjoyed it just as much as I usually have. And yes it is different, but if you were to compared Iron maiden’s “Powerslave” and “The X Factor” or Metallica’s “Ride the Lightning” and “Load”, you are going to get the same immense differences in sound. I get completely why some fans don’t like this album, or the one before or the one after for that matter. Different singer, different style of heavy metal that the band writes and plays. There is a compromise that has to be made to enjoy this album if you are an Anthrax fan, in the same way you have to compromise to enjoy those mid-1990's albums of the other two bands just mentioned. And if you can’t do it, I understand. It isn’t for everyone. Though I still listen to and enjoy this album, it was a fall from what had come before it, and though it isn’t referenced often the friendship between Anthrax and Pantera seemed to become more than just mutual admiration of their music. That glide towards musical appreciation and admiration similarities would extend through to their next project, but a lot of water was to pass under the bridge prior to that occurring.
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