New album, “Cursum Perficio”, out on September 18th!
Multi-GRAMMY® award-nominated New York heavy metal titans Anthrax – Scott Ian (guitar), Charlie Benante (drums), Frank Bello (bass), Joey Belladonna (vocals), and Jonathan Donais (guitar) – will unleash their long-awaited 12th full-length studio album Cursum Perficio via Nuclear Blast Records and Megaforce Records (North America). It marks the band’s first record in ten years since 2016’s For All Kings, which debuted in the Top 10 of the Billboard 200. The phrase Cursum Perficio is Latin for “My journey has come to an end,” “My journey is over,” or “I complete my journey.” It proves apropos for such a complete body of work.
The band dove into recording Cursum Perficio in earnest during 2022, working out of Dave Grohl’s Studio 606 in Los Angeles. They carefully pieced together what would be this magnum opus, mining their history with reverence, delivering on fan expectations tenfold, and broadening the scope of their signature sound. Produced by Jay Ruston and Anthrax, the result is an album that’s as angry, aggressive, and alive as their most celebrated fare.
“It was quite a journey from the inception of this album to its completion,” Ian says. “We were supposed to make this in 2020, but the universe had other plans for everyone. After the Pandemic, we got to be a band again. When we started working on the record, we were just happy to be in a room together. It was so exciting that it was like being reborn in a way. All of that energy and emotion went into the music. The fear of being forced out of our lives and the joy of coming back together are present. The title ‘Cursum Perficio’ feels like ANTHRAX. It resembled what we went through to get to the point of finishing the record.”
“There was an awful lot of growth between Worship Music in 2011 and CURSUM PERFICIO,” Benante elaborated. “This album is a culmination of everything we’ve learned. I was watching a Marilyn Monroe documentary, and I saw ‘Cursum Perficio’ written on a tile in her last home. When I found out what the phrase meant, it immediately clicked with me. We aren’t saying this is our last record, but our journey has come to an end. I believe we’ve completed the task.”
“We had to make Fistful Of Metal and Spreading The Disease to be able to write Among The Living,” Ian goes on. “In the same respect, it took Worship Music and For All Kings for us to be able to write CURSUM PERFICIO. I very much compare this record to Among The Living.”
“We left it all on the table,” agreed Bello. “We really know who we are as ANTHRAX, what turns us on, and what we need to do. I don’t think anybody knows what’s next, but we’re hungrier than ever. From here on out, we’re going to go full throttle for every fucking minute.”
Photograph by Travis Shinn)
