10 Legendary Hard Rock Bands That Have Terrible Debut Albums
3. Fistful of Metal - Anthrax
The entire journey for Anthrax to even get noticed in thrash's early days was an uphill battle. Despite having the pioneer of the genre Johnny Z right in their back yard of New York City, they had to go through one demo after another before actually getting the chance to record their debut with Fistful of Metal. Once you got a listen to the record though, you start to see where some of that hesitation was coming from.
As your standard early thrash release, this album is technically fine, so long as you don't pay attention to Neil Turbin's vocals. Though not terrible by any stretch, you can tell that he's reaching for some soaring quality in his voice that just isn't happening, like if a rock singer was trying to do their best imitation of someone like Bruce Dickinson. While it makes for some decent tracks like Soldiers of Metal and Panic, the polish wouldn't come until a few years later.
After giving the band a bit of an ultimatum, Anthrax split ties with Turbin and drafted in Joey Belladonna, who's high pitched wails are much more suited to the mania that comes with songs like Madhouse. Not a bad album by any means, but when you're standing next to Metallica's Kill Em All on the roster, this almost looks sophomoric by comparison.