Musically, despite abandoning hip-hop trimmings and deploying a patchwork of guest guitarists to replace the departed Danny Spitz, this is the most riveting Anthrax CD yet. While Pantera's Dimebag Darrell is the most renowned of the rented axemen, it's band friend Paul Crook who emerges with the most taut, memorable solos, fueling a quicksilver sludge that, as always, is superbly driven by drummer/songwriter Charlie Benante. Using producers The Butcher Brothers (Urge Overkill, Cypress Hill) was another inspired choice, as they provide just the right mix of audio separation and murky density. Last but not least, vocalist John Bush has settled in on his second record with the band, taking the choruses into overdrive with shrieks that don't have to sacrifice their snarling bottom tone. This is a key virtue in a band that demands a lack of musical self-pity as their songs' narrators bellow and cry into their beers.
Like all the great metal groups, the blues are at the core of Anthrax's music and philosophy. Right now, their relationship with those roots is less florid than what Metallica has churned out, less pretentious than Megadeth, and less retro than AC/DC. This is music that dares to look in the mirror and flinch in all the right directions. (Britt Robson)
Menswe@r
Nuisance
London Records
The publicity photos alone--five pouty young Londoners in slick suits, shaggy haircuts and eyeliner--are enough to set even lightweight American indie devotees running the other way. That's unfortunate, because Menswe@r are a perfect aural antidote to alterna-nobodies like CIV and Letters to Cleo, and have the delicious gall to christen their debut Nuisance. The boys (at 24, debonair vocalist Johnny Dean is the eldest member) signed to a major label after only a handful of gigs and no demo (natch). Surprisingly, Menswe@r manage to turn a potentially obnoxious dud into one of 1995's true British firecrackers.
As for influence-spotting, "Daydreamer" mixes the spiky guitar noise of Wire with the keyboard blips of Roxy Music's "Virginia Plain," for instance, while the ghost of Adam and the Ants haunts the corners on "125 West 3rd Street;" we'll wish you happy hunting for the others. England's newest cover boys also keep most songs under a charming three minutes, and restrict lyrical concerns to sex, drugs, and fame (you were expecting something else?). But in avoiding the guitar histrionics that often mar Oasis tunes and the music-hall smarm that made such a mess of Blur's latest, Menswe@r are poised to kick the door in on a generation of music fans weaned on 120-Minutes. Too bad that Yankee snobbery will most likely stop them in their pretty little tracks. (Matt Keppel)
