A year after the shocking release for the worldwide metal community named “I’m The Man”, Anthrax return with the diverse “State Of Euphoria”. Guided by the couple of Jon & Marsha Zazula as their management, they’ve already gone platinum with their previous single, the first ever crossover track between rap & metal.

This is their 4^th full-length effort and despite the lukewarm critics these New Yorkers got even higher chart positions and became superstars! More specifically, in comparison to their previous album “Among The Living” they climbed 32 positions in the States (claimed officially gold by the RIAA and reached Billboard No 30), went to No 12 in the UK and entered charts they’ve never had before like Canada, Switzerland and Norway!

The real case here is the band’s establishing in bigger track length starting from the opener “Be All, End All” (featuring cello intro by Carol Freedman), continuing with Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind, Make Me Laugh and making the big hit with a cover by a French act named Trust with Antisocial. The band has featured both Iron Maiden drummers (Mc Brain & Burr) and the track is their opener for the 1980’s “Repression” album by CBS. In 1989’s “Penikufesin” EP, Anthrax fans can hear Joey Belladonna sing the track in French! After “Antisocial” we find tracks like “Who Cares Wins”, “Now It’s Dark” that was used in The Sims video game and was inspired by David Lynch’ s “Blue Velvet”, “Schism” and probably the best track in here (inspired by Stephen King’s novel “Misery”) “Misery Loves Company”. The classic Anthrax fun song is the record’s last “Finalé”.

I’d agree that this isn’t the most artistic record Anthrax have done (maybe “Among The Living” earns this title) but it most definitely establishes their style as one of heavy metal’s trademarks. The yellow color on the album cover, the pictures with the band members wearing pink (not only) shorts, their riffs and their sarcastic about metal fan antisocial cliché of their time had irritated a lot of people at the time of the album’s release 20 years ago. And let’s don’t forget the two guys that contributed to this impressive for the ’80s thrash era result: producer Mark Dodson (Judas Priest, Joan Jett, Ozzy, Prong, Ugly Kid Joe, U.D.O., Suicidal Tendencies, Infectious Grooves etc) and engineer Alex Perialas (Overkill, S.O.D., Nuclear Assault, Carnivore, Testament, Holy Moses, Flotsam & Jetsam, Vio-lence, Bad Religion, Pro-Pain etc). This is a revolutionary work for its narrow minded years.

The track list in details:

1. Be All, End All – 6:22
2. Out of Sight, Out of Mind – 5:13
3. Make Me Laugh – 5:41
4. Antisocial (Bernie Bonvoisin/Norbert Krief) – 4:27
5. Who Cares Wins – 7:35
6. Now It's Dark – 5:34
7. Schism – 5:27
8. Misery Loves Company – 5:40
9. 13 – 0:49
10. Finale – 5:47
    
    All tracks besides Trust’s “Antisocial” are collectively composed by Anthrax.