Anthrax – Cursum Perficio (Album Review)
Updated: Sep 19
Release date: September 18, 2026
Record label: Nuclear Blast Records
Riff Doctor’s Score:
RRRR1/2 (4.5/5)
Diagnosis
Ten years is a hell of a long time to wait for a new Anthrax record. Thankfully, Cursum Perficio sounds like a band making up for lost time.
More importantly, it doesn't sound like five veterans simply protecting their legacy. Anthrax sound hungry, ridiculously tight and willing to push beyond the formula that made them one of thrash metal's Big Four. In fact, from this doctor's chair, Cursum Perficio is the strongest album any of the Big Four have delivered in recent years.
And perhaps its biggest revelation is Joey Belladonna.
The Full Review
A full decade has passed since For All Kings arrived in 2016, the longest gap between studio albums in Anthrax's career. Pandemic delays, abandoned material and a lengthy writing and recording process all played their part, but Cursum Perficio ultimately sounds like an album that benefited from not being rushed.
Produced by Jay Ruston alongside Anthrax, it sounds absolutely enormous. The guitars have weight without becoming muddy, Charlie Benante's drums hit with frightening precision and Frank Bello's bass remains an essential part of that unmistakable Anthrax pulse. There is clarity everywhere, even when the band are moving at ridiculous speed.
But then there is Joey Belladonna.
Belladonna has always felt like a considerably better singer than Anthrax's music has sometimes allowed him to demonstrate. On Cursum Perficio, that changes. This might be the album where we finally hear the full extent of his talent. Instead of simply placing vocals over riffs, there are moments when the entire band seems prepared to step back and build the song around him.
That becomes apparent early.
Following the brief Persistence Of Memory, The Long Goodbye properly opens proceedings. Personally, I might have reversed the order and thrown It's For The Kids at us first. That song is Anthrax distilled into four minutes: frantic changes of pace, high-speed solos, crushing riffs and those heavier sections designed to make bodies move.
The Long Goodbye, however, is arguably the more interesting composition. More measured, melodic and emotional, it immediately signals that this isn't going to be an Anthrax album interested solely in recreating the past. And that's where Cursum Perficio really succeeds.
Everybody's Got A Plan represents modern Anthrax beautifully. The pace is slightly restrained without sacrificing any of the punch, the guitars introduce a more melodic character and Belladonna dominates the foreground. It's heavy metal with muscle, but also with hooks. A tremendous song.
Then comes The Edge Of Perfection and this is something else.
Its beautiful, restrained opening and almost-clean guitar create a sense of space before an absolutely colossal riff crashes through it. Yet even at its heaviest, melody remains embedded in the song, reinforced by the backing vocals and Belladonna's performance. It feels huge rather than merely heavy. Alongside the title track, it's the finest moment on the album.
Interestingly, those two songs may also be among the least conventionally “Anthrax” moments here – and that's precisely the point. After more than four decades, Anthrax haven't forgotten what they are, but neither have they decided that knowing who they are means standing still.
There's still plenty here for anyone who simply wants Anthrax to thrash.
NYC 93 sits much closer to the band's classic attack and shares some DNA with It's For The Kids, while Watch It Go initially flies forward at breakneck speed before dropping into slower, much heavier rhythms. Those dynamic shifts are crucial. Speed becomes more effective when there's something massive waiting on the other side of it.
And then there's a track like Infectious. It may not be the album's obvious showstopper, but it's exactly the kind of song that separates a very good record from a great one. There is no sense of filler here. Even away from the obvious highlights, the quality barely drops.
Eventually we reach Cursum Perficio itself, and Anthrax once again stretch beyond the boundaries people might expect them to occupy. Together with The Edge Of Perfection, it represents the most exciting thing about this record: the best moments aren't necessarily the ones that sound most like classic Anthrax.
They are the moments that show what Anthrax can still become.
That also makes comparisons with their old Big Four companions unavoidable. Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer have all taken very different paths in recent years, but judged purely on recent studio output, Cursum Perficio is, for us, the strongest album to emerge from any of the four in years.
Not because Anthrax are desperately trying to sound young.
Because they don't need to.
Scott Ian, Charlie Benante, Frank Bello, Jonathan Donais and Joey Belladonna sound like musicians operating at an extraordinarily high level, with enough confidence in their history to start bending its rules.
The Latin title Cursum Perficio can be translated along the lines of “my journey has come to an end”, inevitably raising the question of whether this might be Anthrax's final album. The band haven't declared it as such, and listening to these eleven tracks, retirement is certainly not the feeling it leaves behind.
Quite the opposite.
If this is what Anthrax sound like after ten years away from the studio, let's just hope they don't make us wait another ten.
Jose Crespo for The Riff Collective
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