It’s been said that even the best laid plans of mice and men — and metalheads — can go awry. Yet while Anthrax’s forthcoming and monstrously anticipated Cursum Perficio has faced delays, the thrash icons’ album is finally on pace to see release next month. To celebrate, they’ve teamed up with Revolver to premiere the record’s bang-crazed third single, “Everybody’s Got a Plan,” and its high-octane music video.
The song follows the classically-thrashed “It’s for the Kids” and the band’s epically experimental and black-metal-adjacent “The Edge of Perfection.” This time, Anthrax lean into a mid-paced beater full of powerful arpeggiation and minors-spiked chorus hooks.
Lyrically, Joey Belladonna seemingly reflects on the futility of prep time, with perhaps a sly salute to the group’s Fistful of Metal era (“Everybody’s got a plan until they get punched in the face”). Notably, guitarist Scott Ian had previously promised that the upcoming record would “punch people in the face,”
Belladonna also howls out self-empowering rally cries (“Turn down the volume on your master’s voice”) and perhaps connects things back to the cycles of violence allude to in “It’s for the Kids” (“We put the sharpest knives in the hands of children — and they cut”).
Jon Donais’ guitar solo begins with dissonant vibrato harmonization ahead of a skillfully screamed and scale-crawled conclusion.
You can hear how Anthrax lay out their “Plan” via the music video up above. It incorporates footage of the band’s recent performance at Lisbon, Portugal’s Estádio do Sport Lisboa e Benfica opening for Iron Maiden, with backstage shots of the group pal’ing around and pounding iced coffees. According to bassist Frank Bello, it’s “a great representation of a day in the life of Anthrax on tour.”
“‘Everybody’s Got a Plan’ has always been one of my favorite songs on Cursum Perficio,” Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante comments. “The video basically shows the band on and off stage in a montage of video clips that kinda matches the velocity of the song. The line ‘Everybody’s Got A Plan until they get punched in the face’ is such a great line, and so true!”
Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian adds: “We wanted to capture us having fun on tour and what better way to do that? That was a plan that didn’t end up with a punch in the face! Have fun watching my friends!”
As previously reported, Cursum Perficio is due out September 18th via Megaforce. Anthrax also recently announced an upcoming graphic novel covering the many stages of the thrashers’ career. You can pre-order those releases and find other Anthrax items in Revolver’s shop.
Anthrax will kick into a North American summer tour with Iron Maiden and Megadeth, at Toronto, Ontario’s Rogers Centre on August 29th.