末日逼近 (1987)

Among the Living is the third studio album by American heavy metal band Anthrax. It was released on March 22, 1987, by Megaforce Records in the US and by Island Records in the rest of the world. The album is dedicated to Cliff Burton of Metallica, who died in a bus accident six months before its release while Metallica were on tour with Anthrax as the opening act.

Veteran engineer Eddie Kramer, at his first venture with a thrash metal act, co-produced the album. Recording proceeded smoothly, but different visions for the sound of the final release created disagreements between Anthrax and the producer during the audio mixing.

Anthrax members described the album as their breakthrough, as it marked the progression from the band playing in small clubs to arenas and stadiums. The album was critically acclaimed and promoted the band among the "Big Four" of thrash metal. The band's second gold record, Among the Living was certified gold by the RIAA on July 31, 1990.

Background

The original members of Anthrax grew up in New York City listening to 1970s rock and hard rock and turned to heavy metal in the 1980s, profoundly influenced by bands like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Motörhead. Drummer Charlie Benante was also a fan of bands playing music considered extreme at the time, such as Raven and Venom, and he and guitarist Scott Ian enjoyed hardcore as much as metal. Guitarist Dan Spitz, originally in the band Overkill, was an accomplished, trained musician, while Joey Belladonna had a background as a singer in cover bands of arena rock acts Bad Company, Foreigner and Journey. The integration of these differing musical sensibilities resulted in Anthrax's second album, Spreading the Disease, praised by critics for showing decisive progress from the band's debut release, Fistful of Metal, and for introducing a unique sound, which opposed the fast and heavy riffing of thrash metal with Belladonna's clean and melodic vocals. That album also marked the beginning of the songwriting method that would see the band through its most successful period. Benante would create riffs and rough musical structures for all the songs, that would later be developed, integrated and arranged with the other musicians. Ian composed all the lyrics and worked on them with Belladonna to create vocal melodies that were fit to his high-pitched, melodic singing style.

Anthrax had spent about six months in 1985 recording Spreading the Disease, their first album for the major label Island Records, which sold more than 100,000 copies worldwide. They had been on tour to support the album since its release, both as headliners in small clubs and as an opening act for other bands. When opening for W.A.S.P. and Black Sabbath on their tour supporting the album Seventh Star, Anthrax played for the first time in mid-sized arenas and were thrilled by the experience and by audiences' reaction to their music.

After a brief stop to rehearse new songs in July 1986, Anthrax joined longtime friends and Megaforce Records labelmates Metallica on the European leg of Metallica's Damage, Inc. Tour supporting Master of Puppets. In Sweden on September 27, Metallica bassist Cliff Burton was killed when the band's tour bus skidded off the road. His death profoundly impacted the thrash-metal community in which he was a highly regarded figure, and the members of Anthrax dedicated their new album Among the Living to his memory. In 2012, Ian said in an interview that part of the reason "... the album sounds so angry is because Cliff died. We'd lost our friend, and it was so wrong and unfair."

Musical style

The music press largely considers Among the Living one of the strongest thrash metal albums ever recorded. In comparison with Spreading the Disease, the songs on the album generally feature faster rhythms granted by Benante's double-pedal bass-drum beats, stronger hardcore influences in the frequent gang choruses and a more aggressive vocal delivery by Belladonna. According to Ian, the general sonic approach of the songs is similar to "A.I.R.", the opening track of Spreading the Disease. The structure of the tracks is conventional and sometimes inspired by other rock songs, such as AC/DC's "Whole Lotta Rosie" for "Caught in a Mosh", but with many rhythm changes and melodies that sometimes yield to the aggressive and dry sound. One critic considered this last feature a probable carryover from the Stormtroopers of Death project, a seminal crossover band formed in 1985 by Benante, Ian and original Anthrax bassist Danny Lilker, that had combined metal riffs with hardcore on an album of short, fast and satirical songs titled Speak English or Die.