Anthrax have released Cursum Perficio, ending the ten year gap since For All Kings. Their 12th studio album arrived September 18 through Megaforce Records, with 11 songs produced by Jay Ruston and the band.
The release also introduces a video for “Cursum Perficio,” directed by Don Argott and starring musician and actor London May. Shot in black and white, the clip combines documentary style footage with a narrative built around May’s physically demanding performance.
The chains were real, and so was at least some of the pain. May, also known for his work with Samhain, said the shoot left him injured almost immediately. “I broke my finger the very first day and had to beg them to keep shooting,” he said in the release announcement. He described working with heavy metal chains and said he would willingly take on the experience again.
For Scott Ian, the performance serves a song concerned with what a person makes of the time they have. The guitarist said the video follows the questions at the center of his lyrics: how to measure a life, what was accomplished and whether the struggle was worthwhile. “How do you measure oceans of time and what did you do with it?” Ian asked. Charlie Benante described the song as an overlooked contender on the album and praised Argott’s video for matching its tone.
Those questions also reach into the album’s title. Benante encountered the Latin phrase while watching a documentary about Marilyn Monroe, whose last home displayed the words on a tile. Its meaning, broadly translated as completing a journey, appealed to him as a way of describing what Anthrax had accomplished. He has also pushed back on the idea that it signals the band’s retirement, telling Folha de S.Paulo that the title does not mean they are ending Anthrax.
Finishing the record required working through a disrupted plan. Ian has said the band originally intended to make it in 2020, before the pandemic intervened. Work became more focused in 2022, with much of the recording taking place at Dave Grohl’s Studio 606 in Los Angeles. Ian described the relief of being together again as part of the record’s emotional foundation. Ruston’s familiarity with the musicians also mattered: bassist Frank Bello credited their established relationship and the studio environment with helping the sessions feel alive.
Some of the writing deals with a more personal kind of ending. Ian wrote “The Long Goodbye” about his father, who died in 2024 after living with dementia for eight years. The guitarist has described the song in terms of both grief and relief that his father’s suffering had ended. Elsewhere, he connected “The Edge of Perfection” to his love for his wife and son, giving the album concerns beyond anger alone.
Listeners had already heard “The Edge of Perfection,” “It’s for the Kids” and “Everybody’s Got a Plan” before the full release. The latter’s video paired live footage and backstage scenes with archival boxing images, while the new title track clip puts a single actor’s ordeal at its center.
Anthrax marked the album’s arrival in Louisville, meeting fans at Guestroom Records for a midnight signing after their September 17 Louder Than Life set. Their next scheduled performance is September 25 at BMO Stadium in Los Angeles.
