Among the Living
Among the Living is the third studio album by American heavy metal band Anthrax. It was released on March 16, 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.Composition
Anthrax composed the songs "I Am the Law", "Indians", and "I'm the Man" during the tour of 1986, rehearsed the first two, and included "I Am the Law" in their live setlist. Most of the songs were written in July 1986, after the tour had ended. At the end of July 1986, Anthrax arranged and rehearsed the new songs at Top Cat rehearsal studios in New York City, before leaving for the UK, where they joined Metallica for their European dates.Music critics praised the use of humor in Among the Living's lyrics, which were inspired by disparate sources. Socially conscious matters are present in songs such as "Indians", about the plight of Native Americans forced to live on reservations, "One World", which deals with the risk of nuclear holocaust and "Imitation of Life", about false personas, especially in the music business. "Efilnikufesin " is a protest song against drug abuse and was inspired by comedian John Belushi's drug addiction and death. Ian is still baffled that journalists ask him why he wrote a song about the National Football League, just showing that "they haven't bothered to read the lyrics, or understand the whole point of the song."
Two of the album's songs are based on characters and situations taken from Stephen King's work: "Among the Living" draws from the novel The Stand, and "A Skeleton in the Closet" from the novella "Apt Pupil", a part of the Different Seasons collection. Both Ian and Benante were avid readers of King's works. "I Am the Law" is based on riffs left over from the recording sessions of Spreading the Disease and is co-credited with Lilker. The title is the catchphrase of Judge Dredd, a comic book character whose stories were originally published in the British magazine 2000 AD, of which Ian was a reader and fan.
"Caught in a Mosh" recounts a roadie's experience during an agitated concert; many metalheads consider it a classic thrash-metal anthem. Critics read it as a glorification of the slam pit and a metaphor for life struggles. The last song written for the album was "Horror of It All" as a tribute to Cliff Burton, whose death affected the band members.
Recording
The band wanted a producer who could capture the energy of their live show and requested Eddie Kramer for the task. Kramer was a famous producer and engineer who had worked with Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and Kiss, among others. The live sound that Kramer had captured in the Kiss album Alive! had especially impressed Ian and Benante when they were young. "When Eddie said yes to us, it was a total headfuck," guitarist Scott Ian recalled.The band recorded the new songs in about six weeks at Quadradial Studios in Miami, Florida. It was difficult at the time to record the sound of overdriven guitars, typical of thrash metal bands such as Anthrax, and manage to distinguish it from the bass guitar and the bass drum. As Kramer recalled: "I'd never recorded anything quite like it. I wasn't sure of what they were looking for initially. And it was a challenge to figure out ways to record heavy guitars with heavy drums – it was just a different process." Kramer set up the recording sessions as group live performances, and the band members were enthusiastic regarding the atmosphere and the sound produced. "We always felt like when we were in a room rehearsing, we were at our best," Ian said. "We were killing it, and we had all the confidence in the world." The production then moved for retouching and mixing of the tracks to Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas, a facility owned by Chris Blackwell, the president of Anthrax's record label Island Records. Ian had suggested that recording studio only because Iron Maiden had been working there since 1983.
In Nassau, Kramer created a first mix full of sound effects and reverb and claimed to have done a "modern mixing", similar to producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange's work for Def Leppard's best-selling album Pyromania. The band members were dissatisfied with the mix and rejected it, arguing with Kramer to return to a clean, dry sound as close to the original live recording as possible. In a 2013 interview, Kramer remarked how "... the guys had a totally different attitude, a totally different way of thinking, and I remember it being contentious during the mixing." Pressed by the possibility of being fired, Kramer relented to the band members' request and wrapped up the mixing process in less than two weeks.