Cheerful Metalheads

By JONATHAN GOLD

Oct. 16, 1988 12 AM PT

CHECK LIST **** Great Balls of Fire *** Good Vibrations ** Maybe Baby * Running on Empty

***ANTHRAX. “State of Euphoria.” Megaforce/Island. Speed metal--which is approximately to plain-vanilla metal what Chuck Berry used to be to, say, Patti Page--comes in many flavors. But only specialists and teen-agers can usually tell the difference.

Unlike most such bands who sing about Satan or doom, Anthrax is the regular guy’s speed-metal band: a bunch of cheerful metalheads who read Mad, glom Stephen King and worry a little--but not too much--about the Indians, just the way their audience does.

And the lyrics are funny, inspired by comic strips, TV evangelists and Dennis Hopper’s best rants in “Blue Velvet.” Singer Joey Belladonna actually knows how to sing in a Ronnie James Dio sort of way (which is kind of a first in the genre), and rhythm guitarist Scott Ian gets an extremely pleasant crunch out of his Marshall amps, powering the band at an amiable walk, AC/DC speed.

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Jonathan Gold

Jonathan Gold was the restaurant critic for the Los Angeles Times. He won the Pulitzer Prize in criticism in 2007 and was a finalist again in 2011. A Los Angeles native, he began writing the Counter Intelligence column for the L.A. Weekly in 1986, wrote about death metal and gangsta rap for Rolling Stone and Spin among other places, and was delighted that he managed to forge a career out of the professional eating of tacos. Gold died July 21, 2018.

Cheerful Metalheads

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