Caught In a Mosh - BBC Live In Concert

Album Review

Looking back through the pages of '80s metal mags at photographs of Scott Ian wearing Bermuda jams with "Not" shaved into his chest hair (Hit Parader or Metal Circus, anyone?), it's easy to forget that, on-stage, Anthrax were a serious force to be reckoned with. Caught in a Mosh: BBC Live in Concert relives the experience of hearing the thrash megaliths perform in their heyday with two shows from 1987, just on the heels of their first gold record, Among the Living. Here in their classic lineup, singer Joey Belladonna, lead guitarist Dan Spitz, bassist Frank Bello, drummer Charlie Benante, and rhythm guitarist Scott Ian furiously pound through two sets: one from a sold-out Hammersmith Odeon show and the other from Castle Donington's massive Monsters of Rock festival. Both performances are equally great; totally inspired and brutal. Belladonna's Bruce Dickinson-like caterwauling is in top form on the ripping "I Am the Law," "Madhouse," and "Caught in a Mosh" as Benante's rapid-fire double kick drum flutters in time with Bello's heated bass and the distorted twin riffage of Ian and Spitz — to get the English crowd worked into a frenzy. It's completely plausible that these shows invented moshing.