Fistful of Metal

Fistful of Metal
Studio album by Anthrax
Released January 1984
Recorded 1983
Genre Thrash metal, speed metal
Length 35:33
Label Megaforce Records
Producer Anthrax, Carl Canedy
Anthrax chronology
Fistful of Metal
(1984)
Spreading the Disease
(1985)
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic [1]

Fistful of Metal is the debut album by American heavy metal band Anthrax. The album was released in January 1984 by Megaforce Records in the United States and by Music For Nations internationally. This is the band's only album to feature Neil Turbin on vocals and Dan Lilker on bass.

Contents

History

Post release

Danny Lilker and Scott Ian had been the original founders of the band, but Ian elected to fire Lilker shortly after the release of the album. Ian had several reasons for doing so, specifically: the band found him to be lazy and very unprofessional, he had failed to pay his share of the rent for the band's rehearsal sessions, he had required more than thirty takes (2 entire days worth of studio time) to record the song "I'm Eighteen".

As his replacement, the band hired drummer Charlie Benante's nephew, Frank Bello, who has played on every Anthrax album since.

Neil Turbin had contributed song ideas, lyrics, titles and arrangements to some of the songs on the debut album. Both Scott Ian and Charlie Benante, who played guitar in addition to drums, felt they needed tighter control on the songwriting feeling the tracks on the first album were extremely weak. Turbin was fired from the band and Ian and Benante started a songwriting partnership with Ian writing all the lyrics, and Benante began writing the music.

Reissues and other releases

Fistful of Metal was released as a double album in the U.K., featuring extra mixes of tracks that were not included on the U.S. edition. In 2000, Megaforce repackaged and re-release a compilation of Fistful of Metal and the 1985 Anthrax EP Armed and Dangerous which featured some liner notes, but excluded any new mixes and bonus tracks and the original cover, which was replaced by a censored version.

Track listing

No. Title Writer(s) Length
1. "Deathrider"   Neil Turbin, Dan Spitz, Scott Ian, Danny Lilker, Charlie Benante 3:30
2. "Metal Thrashing Mad"   Turbin, Spitz, Ian, Lilker, Benante 2:39
3. "I'm Eighteen" (Alice Cooper cover) Alice Cooper, Glen Buxton, Michael Bruce, Dennis Dunaway, Neal Smith 4:02
4. "Panic"   Turbin, Ian, Lilker 3:58
5. "Subjugator"   Turbin, Spitz, Ian, Lilker, Benante 4:38
6. "Soldiers of Metal"   Turbin, Ian, Lilker 2:55
7. "Death from Above"   Turbin, Ian, Lilker 5:00
8. "Anthrax"   Turbin, Ian, Lilker 3:24
9. "Across the River" (Instrumental) Ian, Lilker 1:26
10. "Howling Furies"   Ian, Lilker 3:55

Personnel

References