Scott Ian Gives Update on the Status of Anthrax’s New Album

Anthrax are in the midst of working on their 12th studio album, and Scott Ian has given an update on the status of it. The record will serve as the follow-up to 2016’s For All Kings.

The band shared a photo from the studio in early May confirming that they’d been working with producer Jay Ruston. While there is still no tentative release date or title for the new set of songs, Ian told Eddie Trunk during a recent conversation on The Eddie Trunk Podcast that he’s hoping they’ll be finished recording by the end of this year.

“We had a session here in L.A., Charlie [Benante], Frankie [Bello] and I tracked nine songs. I finished the guitars on those right before we went to New York, so sometime in June, something like that. Frankie is currently in L.A. tracking bass on those nine songs,” the guitarist said, adding that he’s going back to the studio to add some overdubs to those guitars soon.

Jon Donais has been working on his guitar parts for the group remotely, and Ian is in the process of writing lyrics for some of the songs. So, they still have quite a bit of ways to go, but he assured that they’re “well into it,” and he believes they’ll have all of the recording done by Christmas or New Year’s.

Vocalist Joey Belladonna is set to start recording vocals next month, and Ian noted how “fast” of a worker he is once he starts on something. Apparently, the guitarist had the lyrics to three songs written a few months ago, but after looking them over, he decided to scrap them. Thus, the pressure really is on him to get the lyrics finished in order for Belladonna to be able to start tracking his vocals.

READ MORE: Why Doesn’t Anthrax’s Scott Ian Play Lead Guitar?

“Certainly, of the nine we’ve tracked so far, and of course the rough demos we have of some of the stuff we haven’t tracked with drums yet — from a riff point of view, it’s riffs with all capital letters… The riffs are killer, it’s very riff-centric, a lot of faster, up-tempo material,” Ian described of the new album’s sound.

The guitarist’s son Revel chimed in, saying he thinks the new material sounds like “worship music mixed with Sound of White Noise,” particularly the songs “Invisible,” “This Is Not an Exit” and “Room for One More.” Ian apparently didn’t hear perspective himself, thinking the new music sounds a lot more intense than Sound of White Noise, but sounded intrigued by the comparison nonetheless.

Listen to the full interview below.