Now this is one Awesomely Awful Album that I not only love but feel bad even slapping this term on it. Despite the outcry’s from metal purists, there was nothing remotely awful about this album back then or now. But if you’ve read any of my past installments of Awesomely Awful Albums you know full well the title can be misleading.

So how do you compare this against the numerous classics in the Anthrax discography all of whom sound like they were made by a different band than who recorded this? Well you just don’t, because you just can’t. The Sound of White Noise needs to just sit alone as an anomaly outside the genre defining thrash Anthrax put forth before it and be judged on it’s own merits. So close off that sense of metal elitism and open up your ears instead.

3 years removed from their classic Persistence of Time a lot has changed. Metal’s taken a back seat to a Grunge/Alternative movement. Bands who haven’t gotten regular radio or MTV air-play suddenly are. And then there’s Joey Belladonna saying his goodbye to Anthrax. So what does Anthrax do in the face of all of this? They adapt motherfucker! In comes John Bush (Armored Saint) and they blow my teenage mind with Only! I remember habitually putting my headphones on and going totally ape shit to Only & Room For One More in my bedroom, air guitar and all! Like Pantera, Alice In Chains, Soundgarden & Helmet, Anthrax just knew how to make metal work within an Alternative radio-friendly world. But what’s most impressive is that they did so with so few fillers… Potter’s Field, Only, Room For One More, Hy Pro Glo, 1000 points of Hate & of course Black Lodge!

On an interesting side note, we at the office today were wondering if Black Lodge had been written about Twin Peaks. To our delight we found out that it not only was a reference to Twin Peaks but was co-written by Angelo Badalementi, who penned the theme for Twin Peaks! I fucking love Anthrax on so many more levels now.

I know is a legion of die-hard thrashers out there who cry sell-out to the mere mention of The Sound of White Noise, but whatevs! Listen to it for what it is and it’s pretty fucking awesome at that.