Spreading the Disease

Released on Island in October 1985, it was the first Anthrax album with Belladonna and Bello. Carl Canedy produced it at Pyramid Sound Studios in Ithaca, New York, with Jon Zazula as executive producer. The single Madhouse had a video that got little airplay on MTV, because the channel thought its content degrading to people with mental illnesses. The album reached number 113 on the Billboard 200.

Ian said the title of the opener, A.I.R., stands for Adolescence in Red, a play on Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. The cover was by Peter Corriston and Dave Heffernon, who had worked on Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti sleeve, to a concept from Benante about a man being checked for radiation. Howard Johnson of Kerrang! recommended it at the time as the best example of thrash metal, and the author Joel McIver called it "the sound of pure determination".