August 21, 2020 will mark 30 years to the day that Anthrax released their fifth record, Persistence of Time. To commemorate the occasion, the band is releasing a deluxe edition of the thrash masterwork, fully remastered and packaged with refashioned cover art. The CD format will include two CDs and one DVD. The vinyl option will be four LPs with the album’s original visual concept for art.
Anthrax’s Charlie Benante helmed the direction for this anniversary release. Disc One is the 11-track album, fully-remastered by Paul Logus; which also features a bonus B-side version of “I’m The Man” from 1990 that leans more hip-hop than rock, and a live version of “Time” that was recorded at Michigan’s Palace of Auburn Hills in 1991. The final two songs on Disc One, as well as all nine tracks on Disc Two, are special recordings from “Charlie’s Stash.” These recordings offer fans a glimpse of the trove of Anthrax music from the band’s rehearsals, writing sessions, preproduction, and live performances that Benante has recorded over the past 40 years and has been kept safely filed away. These recordings illustrate the genesis and the evolution of the songs on Persistence of Time. Benante adds, “you’ll hear parts of songs that never made it to the final recording or songs with an arrangement different from the finished song.”
The DVD is 40-minutes of footage from Anthrax’s 1991 tour with in comparable Iron Maiden. The live footage includes Benante sitting in on the drums for Nick McBrain. It also includes footage of Scott Ian, Charlie Benante, and Frank Bello joining Maiden onstage for an epic rendition of “Sanctuary.”
The liner notes and artwork includes a collection of band photos, magazine covers, working passes, and promotional items. It even includes script pages from the band’s 1992 appearance on the the sitcom, Married With Children.
Benante expressed the following while recollecting the particular era of Anthrax. “It was a weird time for us for a number of reasons but at the same time, a lot of great things happened. We did ‘Married with Children,’ we toured with Slayer and Megadeth on the ‘Clash of the Titans Tour,” and we recorded ‘Bring The Noise’ with Public Enemy, and that turned everything around.”
