ANTHRAX have offered more clarity on why their long-awaited new studio album has been pushed back to September 2026, confirming that the delay was not caused by creative issues, but by major changes behind the scenes.
The upcoming record will mark the band’s first full-length release since 2016’s For All Kings, and remains one of the most anticipated thrash metal albums in recent years. In a recent interview with Hot Metal, drummer Charlie Benante confirmed that while fans will still hear new music soon, the full album will not arrive until later in the year.
“It’s been pushed back because we recently changed the team, management and stuff like that,” Benante said. “We wanted the new people coming in, the new team coming in, [to] really know what’s going on, just kinda of have more of a strategic plan.”
The record was tracked and mixed partly at Dave Grohl’s Studio 606 in Northridge, California, with ANTHRAX once again working alongside producer Jay Ruston, who also helmed Worship Music (2011) and For All Kings (2016). The album will be released in North America via Megaforce and in Europe through Nuclear Blast.
Discussing the upcoming first single, set for release in May, he said: “It’s a great song, that’s all I can say. We wanted the first song to come out to basically represent ANTHRAX in 2025/2006. So it’s basically a thrasher number, you know?
“There’s elements of the [album] that are very abrasive,” Charlie explained. “There’s elements of the record that … wow, we haven’t gone in this area. And a lot of it, it’s a more grown-up kind of sound. I don’t mean that in a way where it sounds like a LITTLE RIVER BAND or anything but it’s just we’re more mature now, and I think the writing shows it. It’s so good. And I’m not gonna say ‘it sounds like this’, ‘it sounds like that’. It’s just a collection of songs where each one stands up right next to the other one.
“There will be three songs that come out before the record comes out,” he revealed. “So you will get samples of what this record is before it comes out.”
Earlier comments from bassist Frank Bello also hinted at the intensity of the new material. Speaking to Long & McQuade’s Dan Coniglio, he said: “I’m very proud. It’s so heavy. Some parts are really hard to play — really hard to play, which I’m happy to say, ’cause I like the challenge of it all. Joey‘s [Belladonna, ANTHRAX singer] vocals — I don’t understand how the guy could sing like that, but he still is killing it. And I’m very psyched.”
Reeder, the visionary behind Metal Addicts, has transformed his lifelong passion for metal into a thriving online community for metal aficionados. As a fervent devotee of black metal, Reeder is captivated by its dark, atmospheric, and often unorthodox soundscapes.