Among The Living

Among the Living is the third studio album by American thrash metal band Anthrax. The album was released in March 1987 by Megaforce Worldwide/Island and is certified gold by the RIAA. BBC has described the album as “arguably their big breakthrough”, and “often cited by fans as their favourite Anthrax album”.

The album was produced by Anthrax and Eddie Kramer. The album includes the singles, “I Am the Law” and “Indians”. The video for the song “Indians” received substantial rotation on MTV.

The cover of Among the Living depicts the Rev. Henry Kane, antagonist from the Poltergeist series of films. It has also been speculated that the cover is an homage to the character Randall Flagg, the antagonist from the Stephen King novel The Stand, as this character is the subject of the album’s title track. “A Skeleton In The Closet” is also inspired by a Stephen King novella entitled Apt Pupil.

This was the final Anthrax album to feature songwriting contributions from original bassist Danny Lilker, who, despite having left the band after 1984’s Fistful of Metal, was credited as the co-writer of several Anthrax songs for the next two albums. On Among the Living, he is credited as the co-writer of the songs “I Am the Law” and “Imitation of Life”.

The album was dedicated to the memory of Metallica bassist Cliff Burton, a highly regarded figure in the thrash community who died six months prior to the album’s release.