Got some Bush love last night.

It can be plainly stated that although Anthrax lost most of their viability when Joey Belladonna was out of the picture, that the band didn’t completely die until they lost Dan Spitz and the subsequent release of this utter travesty. At this point basically anything that even resembles the good aspects of grunge and hard rock were ejected from their sound and what is left is probably the blandest and most redundant pile of groove feces possible while still just barely missing all out Mallcore territory. The Limp Bizkit tendencies are definitely here, but it still retains just enough elements of the early 90s Pantera sound to qualify as Metal in some respects.

There are actually two aspects of this album that make it superior, in a relative sense, than “Sound Of White Noise”. The first is that the guitar tone has been cleaned up a bit so as not to sound like the mud butt soaked mess that was present before, resulting in a sound that is somewhat closer to what was heard on “Persistence Of Time”, though the boring as hell guitar grooves that are being used do not bring it anywhere near being enjoyable. The second being that Dimebag Darrel has been tapped to fill Spitz’s shoes, and being the crazed fret board blazer that he is, actually upstages his predecessor in the technical department.

Make no mistake though, what is heard on here is absolute garbage, albeit fairly well sugarcoated garbage when you account for the production quality and the improved guitar sound. Picture two nice big pieces of savory cheesecake floating in a toilet full of runny excrement and you’ll have what these positive elements amount to. Each one of these songs is an exercise in sheer droning, repetitive boredom with really annoying Scott Weiland meets Fred Durst vocals. Sometimes the grooves are semi-tolerable like in the case of “Fueled” and “In A Zone”, and at other times they throw in some really ear piercing high end dissonant guitar noise like in “Drop The Ball” and “Riding Shotgun” which grates in a way that makes some of the crap on “Through The Ashes Of Empires” sound pleasant by comparison.

One thing that can be said about this album which pretty well separates it from a lot of others by Anthrax’s half-thrash contemporaries is that it’s consistent. There isn’t really a whole lot that separates one song from the next in terms of quality, baring the incorporation or removal of certain annoying guitar and vocal effects. One exception is the famed radio oriented single “Nothing”, which drops the groove metal and hard core influences for an even duller and lamer brand of pseudo-heavy alternative rock. Picture something by Eve 6 or Sponge and then throw in a little lead guitar slot and you’ve got it. The other exception is “Bare”, which actually comes off as a joke considering that it’s a poorly sung rehash of what Gin Blossoms had been doing on their acoustic music for a couple years on an album populated with bad mallcore.

If you wanted to point to a single song on here that really stands out as being good in any respect, the winner would be “In A Zone”, which ventures the closest towards the “Sound Of White Noise” character of sound. The chorus riff actually sounds pretty similar to the interlude riff heard after the guitar solo on Guns N’ Roses “Welcome To The Jungle”, while the rest of it sounds like a fairly consistent worship session of Alice In Chains’ “Dirt”. Bush’s vocals are also free of most of that really grating quasi-rapped version of vocalizing that dominates this style of music.

No self-respecting thrash band would put out something like this at all, let alone put it out and then complain in interviews later on that your labels wanted nothing to do with you because you’re an old thrash metal band, because this is not thrash metal. In fact, most of it isn’t even heavy metal if you’re relying on standards of the genre aside from heaviness, which would qualify every single nu-metal band for the category. If you liked any of Anthrax’s previous works, including the lackluster “Sound Of White Noise”, avoid this like crazy. There are better things to do with your time, like analyzing the ass end of a cow with a really bad case of gas.
 
I'm never sure why this album is constantly labeled as Anthrax's worst album. In my opinion, it is John Bush's best album with Anthrax, next to Sound of White Noise. True, this album, and John Bush, did take a while to grow on me. I thought Among the Living was Anthrax's last excellent album. State of Euphoria was dull, Persistence of Time was tl;dl (too long; don't listen), Sound of White Noise was okay, and Stomp 442 was just shit.

After a while of only cycling through three Anthrax albums, curiosity got the best of me and I decided to listen to the other ones. Except, once again, Stomp 442. And for a while, I thought Sound of White Noise was John Bush's only great album with Anthrax. I had no intention of ever listening to Stomp 442 in its entirety.

Until one day, "Riding Shotgun" came on while I was asleep. I woke up right when it started and listened thoroughly. I was impressed by Scott Ian and Dimebag Darrell's guitar playing, and was even more impressed at Frank Bello and Charlie Benante. And then came John Bush, who I was still warming up to. And this album broke, or should I say, fucking destroyed the ice.

While not as "friendly" as Sound of White Noise, Stomp 442 is just as heavy, if not heavier. Stomp 442 is much more experimental than "Sound O' " and seems to be a logical step forward for Anthrax, with Dan Spitz having left the band after Sound O'.

To wrap up, I thought this album is Anthrax's most underrated album to date. It proves Anthrax can do just fine without their traditional sound, Joey, and Dan Spitz. It starts off strong with the five tracks, but really falls short after "In a Zone". Recommended tracks include "Random Acts of Senseless Violence", "Fueled", "King Size", and "Riding Shotgun". Although I wouldn't hang it as high as I would Sound O', it's definitely a fun one to listen to and a nice album to own.

from www.metal-archives.com
 
This album was a huge step in a different direction for Anthrax. As compared to their earlier albums, it is much darker and more aggressive. In actuality, it reminds me very much of a Pantera album, more so than Anthrax. But, I can't help but be attracted to some of the finer points of this album. As replacement for Dan Spitz, Dimebag Darrell was brought in on a few songs. These songs, 'Riding Shotgun' and 'King Size' are pretty phenomenal. And the opening song, 'Random Acts of Senseless Violence' really helps to set the mood for the rest of the album. Overall, this is a quality metal album. Though it isn't what you would expect from Anthrax, it is worth having as something to headbang to. You can really get involved with some of the songs and the lyrics are just catchy. // 9

from ultimate-guitar.com
 
ironmaidenfan09 said:
It can be plainly stated that although Anthrax lost most of their viability when Joey Belladonna was out of the picture, that the band didn’t completely die until they lost Dan Spitz and the subsequent release of this utter travesty. At this point basically anything that even resembles the good aspects of grunge and hard rock were ejected from their sound and what is left is probably the blandest and most redundant pile of groove feces possible while still just barely missing all out Mallcore territory. The Limp Bizkit tendencies are definitely here, but it still retains just enough elements of the early 90s Pantera sound to qualify as Metal in some respects.

There are actually two aspects of this album that make it superior, in a relative sense, than “Sound Of White Noise”. The first is that the guitar tone has been cleaned up a bit so as not to sound like the mud butt soaked mess that was present before, resulting in a sound that is somewhat closer to what was heard on “Persistence Of Time”, though the boring as hell guitar grooves that are being used do not bring it anywhere near being enjoyable. The second being that Dimebag Darrel has been tapped to fill Spitz’s shoes, and being the crazed fret board blazer that he is, actually upstages his predecessor in the technical department.

Make no mistake though, what is heard on here is absolute garbage, albeit fairly well sugarcoated garbage when you account for the production quality and the improved guitar sound. Picture two nice big pieces of savory cheesecake floating in a toilet full of runny excrement and you’ll have what these positive elements amount to. Each one of these songs is an exercise in sheer droning, repetitive boredom with really annoying Scott Weiland meets Fred Durst vocals. Sometimes the grooves are semi-tolerable like in the case of “Fueled” and “In A Zone”, and at other times they throw in some really ear piercing high end dissonant guitar noise like in “Drop The Ball” and “Riding Shotgun” which grates in a way that makes some of the crap on “Through The Ashes Of Empires” sound pleasant by comparison.

One thing that can be said about this album which pretty well separates it from a lot of others by Anthrax’s half-thrash contemporaries is that it’s consistent. There isn’t really a whole lot that separates one song from the next in terms of quality, baring the incorporation or removal of certain annoying guitar and vocal effects. One exception is the famed radio oriented single “Nothing”, which drops the groove metal and hard core influences for an even duller and lamer brand of pseudo-heavy alternative rock. Picture something by Eve 6 or Sponge and then throw in a little lead guitar slot and you’ve got it. The other exception is “Bare”, which actually comes off as a joke considering that it’s a poorly sung rehash of what Gin Blossoms had been doing on their acoustic music for a couple years on an album populated with bad mallcore.

If you wanted to point to a single song on here that really stands out as being good in any respect, the winner would be “In A Zone”, which ventures the closest towards the “Sound Of White Noise” character of sound. The chorus riff actually sounds pretty similar to the interlude riff heard after the guitar solo on Guns N’ Roses “Welcome To The Jungle”, while the rest of it sounds like a fairly consistent worship session of Alice In Chains’ “Dirt”. Bush’s vocals are also free of most of that really grating quasi-rapped version of vocalizing that dominates this style of music.

No self-respecting thrash band would put out something like this at all, let alone put it out and then complain in interviews later on that your labels wanted nothing to do with you because you’re an old thrash metal band, because this is not thrash metal. In fact, most of it isn’t even heavy metal if you’re relying on standards of the genre aside from heaviness, which would qualify every single nu-metal band for the category. If you liked any of Anthrax’s previous works, including the lackluster “Sound Of White Noise”, avoid this like crazy. There are better things to do with your time, like analyzing the ass end of a cow with a really bad case of gas.
Click to expand...

Okay there is no way I'm reading this newest epic rant, but I will say that you seem to put a tremendous amount of effort into disliking Bush era Anthrax.
 
http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/Anthrax/Stomp_442/884/hells_unicorn
The guy's obviously a vivid reader of Encyclopedia Metallum....
I don't agree with that review, because the author is prejudiced. He (as well as our friend here) wouldn't even try to like Stomp, otherwise he'd already feel the energy of this album. Yes, as it was said earlier, Stomp was a step in a unknown direction, but those who's been running around and screaming "This is not Anthrax!" I might suggest taking the CD case and reading what it says on the cover. It fucking says "Anthrax" on it
I personally love Stomp - some songs more than the others, but it's like in real life...
 
Stomp 442 rocks plain and simple. That album actually gets better with each listen for me. I still think SOWN is their best album with Bush. WCFYA was also brilliant. Volume 8 was probably the least fav for me but had some great songs on it regardless (Inside Out is fucking awesome).
 
aliasp said:
Stomp 442 rocks plain and simple. That album actually gets better with each listen for me. I still think SOWN is their best album with Bush. WCFYA was also brilliant. Volume 8 was probably the least fav for me but had some great songs on it regardless (Inside Out is fucking awesome).
Click to expand...

Yeah Vol.8 was a bit weak, although Killing Box and some others were great, but the other Bush albums were fucking awesome every one. Stomp is my favourite of them, but I love them all.
 
Stomp 442 is just one of those 90's metal records that fans should have given more of a chance but like Maidenfans rants no one could be fucked bothering with it.
 
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