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Other albums by Anthrax

Just about every major label began issuing budget-priced sets of its catalog artists come the early 21st century, such as the Universal Masters Collection, which inherited the back catalog of former Island recording artist Anthrax. Issued in early 2002, the 15-track Anthrax edition of Universal Masters Collection focuses solely on the group's recordings with singer Joey Belladonna (1985 through 1991), which means that the front cover image is a quite misleading botch job (Belladonna's replacement, John Bush, is featured in the group shot). Despite the error, the set comes pretty darn close to being among the best Anthrax overviews assembled yet. Many consider the 'Belladonna era' of Anthrax to be group's strongest (both artistically and commercially), as they helped put thrash metal on the map, as well as single-handedly creating the rap-metal genre, spotlighted on a pair of tracks featured here, 'Bring the Noise' (which featured Public Enemy) and 'I'm the Man' (unfortunately, the original version of the song isn't included here; instead, you get the cringe-inducing remake 'I'm the Man '91'). Despite their acclaimed rap experiments, Anthrax was a red-blooded thrash metal band, and the cream of this era is represented quite well, and included are such all-time metal classics as 'A.I.R.,' 'I Am the Law' (a song about the comic book hero Judge Dredd, written years before Sylvester Stallone ruined it with his stink-bomb movie adaptation), 'Indians,' and a pair of great covers, Trust's 'Antisocial' and Joe Jackson's 'Got the Time.' Anthrax's Universal Masters Collection doesn't touch upon all eras of the band, but by and large, it's still a solid collection. ~ Greg Prato