Anthrax, surely the most approachable of the Big Four of thrash metal, just released their first album in more than a decade, Cursum Perficio. Despite the relatively long gap in their discography, many things have not changed since 2016’s For All Kings; same lineup, same producer, same label. But the past decade has brought a lot of changes to the band members’ lives, both personally and professionally, and the new album reflects their new reality.

“Whoever uses the spirit that is in him creatively is an artist. To make living itself an art, that is the goal.” Henry Miller wrote those words in his self-styled memoir, Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch, first published in 1957, seven years before the Supreme Court would decide that Tropic of Cancer was not obscene.