ANTHRAX have licensed one of their most enduring sleeves to Dixxon Flannel Co., who have reworked the earthy artwork of "Persistence Of Time" into the plaid of a limited-edition bamboo flannel, with the band's black logo on the pocket and buttons.
The drop goes live once only, on Thursday, August 20 at 5 p.m., in men's and women's sizes at $59.99 and youth at $29.99, and is expected to sell out. Dixxon cite the band's do-it-yourself streak as the reason for the collaboration: ANTHRAX defined East Coast thrash, took metal places it had not been in the 1980s, and collected six Grammy nominations on the way.
The album behind the pattern turns 36 this year, and it remains one drummer Charlie Benante speaks about most fondly. "One of my favorite records to make," he called it. "It was such a great time for the band and for music. We were, I felt, way more experienced. And even the bands that came up with us too had breaking moments at that point too; METALLICA were putting out the 'Black Album'. So things were totally changing. This was around 1990, and I think heavy metal was starting to become a different source for people."
Its darkness was earned the hard way. During the writing and recording period a fire tore through the band's equipment storage space, destroying more than $100,000 worth of instruments and gear. "We were going through just life challenges as a band. And individually too, we were going through things. So I think that record is a complete reflection on us at that time."
The other pressure came from the album before it. 1988's "State Of Euphoria" saw ANTHRAX swap traditional metal imagery for brightly coloured surfer jam shorts, and the music press — the British end of it in particular — came for them.
"I think some of that backlash that happened towards the end of the cycle of ['State Of Euphoria'] had a bit of an effect on us too, which in turn is why the record after that came out to be a bit darker," Benante said. "During the 'State Of Euphoria' time, things were starting to get away from us... almost like a parody of what we were starting out to do. And I just think we had to regroup and say, 'Enough. We did this. We wanna go back to the way we were.' I think the shorts got out of hand, the goofiness got out of hand — everything was just a little bit blown up to the point where it just didn't feel that we were in control anymore."
"Persistence Of Time" arrived in August 1990 and produced "Got The Time", "In My World" and "Keep It In The Family". ANTHRAX release "Cursum Perficio", their twelfth album and first in ten years, on September 18 via Megaforce/Nuclear Blast.
Source: blabbermouth.net