Personnel: Frank Bello , Joey Belladonna (vocals); Charlie Benante (drums).

Liner Note Author: James McNair.

If it was a reaction to California's eternal sunshine and plastic sheen that inspired Metallica and Megadeth to help create the dark, angst-filled extreme metal that became thrash, perhaps it was New York City's inherent toughness that caused Anthrax to inject a quirky worldview and sarcastic sense of humor into its own pioneering speed metal. Like NYC proto-punks the Dictators before them, Anthrax's uncompromising individuality may have cost them the kind of mainstream success later achieved by their contemporaries and followers, but it also endeared them to an unusually loyal hardcore fanbase. This loyalty extended across the Atlantic to England, as evidenced by the rapturous audience reception documented on CAUGHT IN A MOSH: BBC LIVE IN CONCERT, which features two British gigs from Anthrax's 1987 heyday. Both the Hammerstein and Donnington festival shows find the band in peak form, whipping the crowds into a frenzy with its high-energy chugga-chuggery and vocalist Joey Belladonna's Bruce Dickinson-like tenor. On classics such as the pounding, hardcore-influenced "I Am the Law" and the genre-defining political song "Indians" Anthrax plays it fast and snap-tight, stripping away metal's traditional over-the-top showiness in favor of pure, unadulterated heavy music with no excuses or flash. The effect of this then-still-relatively-new approach is positively electrifying, and a welcome reminder that Anthrax will forever stand as one of the most important bands in thrash.

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 the massive Castle Donington's Monsters of Rock festival. Both performances are equally great; totally inspired and brutal. Belladonna's Bruce Dickinson-like caterwauling is in top form in 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. ~ Jason Lymangrover