Anthrax – State of Euphoria (30th anniversary edition)

When you remember buying an album when it came out, being asked to review the 30th anniversary edition tends to make you feel old. Surely it can’t be 30 years since this classic album came out? Sadly it’s true, so lets have a look what’s involved in this anniversary edition.

It’s a 2 CD package, with disc One consisting of the fully-remastered album along with all of the B-sides from singles released in conjunction with the album, and also “Antisocial” recorded live in London at the Hammersmith Odeon in March, 1989.
The second disc, “Charlie’s Archives,” put together by the band’s drummer Charlie Benante, who dove into his Anthrax vault to come up with the tapes that show the evolution of the album’s songs. Disc Two takes you through the writing, development and recording process of the album’s songs. “We recorded everything back then,” said Benante. “We would sit in the rehearsal room with a little two-track machine record everything we did in rehearsal while we were putting the songs together.” Also pulled from his vault were tapes of the actual recording sessions, all the takes, that also appear on Disc Two.
The package also includes a 20-page booklet that will take you right back to the time of the album’s release.

It’s a pretty impressive package – with a total running time of over two and a half hours there’s a lot to listen to here.
The album sounds great and so do the B-sides. It’s a long time since I heard some of those (like their Sex Pistols cover, “Friggin in the Riggin”) so that brought back some memories, and some I don’t remember hearing at the time (like the KISS cover “Parasite”), so that was great to listen to.
The bonus material is definitely interesting to hear – some interview bits, early versions of songs and so on. It’s really good to listen to but it’s the sort of thing you’ll probably only listen to once

It’s a great reissue. They could have probably got away with just sticking the B sides on there and people would have bought it, but they’ve really done a good job and given fans all the stuff from the making of the album so there really is a lot to listen to.

A great reissue of a classic album.

Track Listing:

Disc: 1
1. Be All, End All
2. Out of Sight, Out of Mind
3. Make Me Laugh
4. Antisocial
5. Who Cares Wins
6. Now It’s Dark
7. Schism
8. Misery Loves Company
9. 13
10. Finale
11. Antisocial (French)
12. Friggin in the Riggin
13. Parasite
14. Le Sects
15. Pipeline
16. Antisocial

Disc: 2
1. Be All, End All
2. Out of Sight, Out of Mind
3. Make Me Laugh
4. Antisocial
5. Who Cares Wins
6. Now It’s Dark
7. Schism
8. Misery Loves Company
9. Finale