Anthrax – ‘Cursum Perficio’

Metal

Nuclear Blast Records

Release Date – September 18^th 2026

Review By Smudge Smith

Anthrax was the first band I saw using my own money. It was the ‘Spreading The Disease Tour’ and I still have fond memories of seeing them at the Hammersmith Odeon (as it was then). I’ll be honest after ‘Among The Living’ I kind of lost interest in them. Dunno why I just preferred the likes of Slayer and Exodus but for me, this is a return to their real form.

Opener ‘The Persistence Of Memory’ is a minute long instrumental that leads to the chugging intro of ‘The Long Goodbye’ which soon gets going as Belladonna comes in with a powerful vocal. It’s classic metal with a dark vibe then things get raucous on the thrashtastic ‘It’s For The Kids’ before it’s back to the trad metal on ‘Everybody’s Got A Plan’. ‘The Edge Of Perfection’ is almost melodic black metal to begin then gets into some modern groove metal before the stomping ‘Infectious’ brings some Black Sabbath lines. ‘NYC 93’ shifts gears towards some punk metal before the title track which translates to ‘my journey is over’. ‘T.O.M.B’ is a proper headbanger and grooves large then ‘Watch It Go’ brings the thrash – yeah! Album closer ‘My Victory’ verges on hardcore and kicks up a whole load of dust.

I think I’m going to have to re-discover Anthrax on the strength of this. It’s been a decade since ‘For All Kings’ and I can see what they have been doing with this release. They have fine-tuned all the songs and trimmed any fat to make it as vibrant and as energetic as possible. Objective achieved. Anthrax have been nominated for Grammy’s before, I reckon they could win one with this.

Track List

Persistence Of Memory

The Long Goodbye

It’s For The Kids

Everybody’s Got A Plan

The Edge Of Perfection

Infectious

NYC 93

Cursum Perficio

T.O.M.B

Watch It Go

My Victory