The Worst of American Thrash Metal Vol. 1: Anthrax - Stomp 442

Welcome to “The Worst of American Thrash Metal” were I comb the catalogs of thrash’s biggest acts and dissect their worst album. Is it worth the hate? Is it overlooked? Let’s find out.

This week we dive in with what's been called “the worst Anthrax album ever”, the long forgotten Stomp 442.

When I decided I was going to do this series, for some reason, Anthrax seemed like a good place to start. Anthrax has always been seen as the dorky kid brother to the rest of The Big 4, but to me it never seemed deserved. Fistful of Metal, while not the group’s best is easily as comparable to the likes of Kill Em All and Killing Is My Business. Then of course there’s the group’s true masterpiece, Among The Living, a fantastic work of thrash that breaks the mold in both the music and songwriting department. Guitarist Scott Ian’s love of punk music gave that album (and the majority of Anthrax’s best material) a carefree edge to it all, supplemented by Ian’s sense of humor and nerdy sensibilities, which made Anthrax one of the funnest bands to listen to. I can only assume that Anthrax’s humor and punk flavoring are why some thrash purists act as if Spreading The Disease was “their only true thrash album”, and subsequently, why Anthrax is still often seen as a joke.

Still, joke or not, Anthrax can make some absolutely kick-ass thrash when they want to. Stomp 442 is not one of those times. For context, Anthrax fired then singer Joey Belladonna in 1992 for… well no one really knows. “Creative and stylistic differences” are often cited as the reason for this split but in the end no one can ever really be sure. So Belladonna was fired and was replaced by John Bush. A man who Wikipedia tells me is a successful singer but for the life of me I cannot understand why. Every time I hear this man he sounds like he is straining his voice. Like someone trying to emulate Billy Joel or Elton John as he does karaoke. His singing always sounded so nasally and uncomfortable to me. But like or not he was there to stay… for a whopping 4 albums and a re-record compilation. Without one of it’s most valuable assets and dead set on ditching the speed metal sound that made them famous in the first place, it’s no wonder that when the topic of “worst Anthrax album” gets brought up, any one of the 4 John Bush albums end up taking the top spot.

But at the top of this shit pile is Stomp 442, an album I had never actually cared to listen to until it was time to talk about it. So why this album as opposed to every other John Bush album? After all, all throughout this era Anthrax basically became a grunge act, slowing down their music, cranking up the distortion, and getting really depressed. Well, the easiest answer to that is that Stomp 442 isn’t so much a poor man’s Alice In Chains as it is a poor man’s metal album.

Now I am by no means a purist when it comes to metal. I am all for a band experimenting outside of their comfort zone, but there has to be some limits. The problem with Stomp 442 is that limit pretty much not existing. The band’s previous album Sound of White Noise was so heavily distorted and slowed that it ended up sounding like something written by Alice In Chains, but at the very least, I can say that album had a goal in mind. It was a heavy metal album with grunge influences, and it knew how to be consistent. Stomp 442 does not know what it wants to do, and instead throws everything at the wall hoping that it would stick.

Every track on this album is basically some new form of an alt metal cliche. It’s actually kind of impressive how many cliches and bad decisions went into making this album. Did you want to hear John Bush rap? No? Well too bad, “Random Acts of Senseless Violence” exists. Did you want some of the messiest guitars Scott Ian ever produced? No? Well too bad, “Riding Shotgun” exists. How about Anthrax painfully trying to be appear cool for a full hour? How about one of the worst album covers/titles in metal history? And on top of that, it feels like the band ran out of ideas on the first half of the album, because the second half just ends up repeating itself.

It’s all so… mediocre. Besides, it’s not all bad. Some choruses end up being catchy, and the whole production does have an aggressive edge to it. When the guitars aren’t being distorted messes they have a satisfying crunch to them. If it wasn’t Anthrax, it might even be an ironically good album from an edgelord band. Although, you have to wonder, what is the point of experimenting if you get so far away from what you were originally that it doesn’t even make sense to call this an Anthrax album.

Yes, try as I might I just can’t muster up any hate for this album. Maybe it’s because I long ago decided the John Bush albums were terrible without giving them an actual listen and now I’m being a cynic. Maybe it’s because even when Anthrax is “bad” they still manage to produce something tolerable. And that’s what this album is: tolerable. I tolerate John Bush, I tolerate the lack of speed, I tolerate the clumsy songwriting. But that’s not how an album should make you feel. You shouldn’t tolerate a band, you should fall in love with them over and over again with every release.

Stomp 442, like every John Bush Anthrax album, left a bad taste in my mouth, but one that will certainly wash out. It’s not bad enough to get mad over, and it’s not good enough to even warrant a pity listen. The worst in Anthrax’s library? It just may be. The worst in American thrash metal? Oh we’ve only just begun.