Anthrax are riding high on their 11th full length effort, For All Kings, which was released on Feb. 26. The album has already wrought punchy singles "Evil Twin" and "Breathing Lightning" and now the band has released an epic, cinematic music video for one of the most unique songs in their 35 year career, "Blood Eagle Wings."

The song, the longest in Anthrax history, opens with delicate guitar work, giving soft hints to the stronger melodies that present themselves as the song goes on. A cloaked Totenkopf, king figure sits in front of a table, gently swiveling its skull as a sand-like city lays before it. Looking out a grated window on the floor, the figure sees prisoners and masked guards wielding halberds torturing prisoners and spilling blood through a multitude of agonizing methods. The feature prisoner (actor James Duval) is first seen kneeling and shackled and later has a goblet of blood poured over his head from above the aforementioned grated window.

"Any great city, whether it's London, Rome, Paris, New York, Los Angeles — these cities are alive because of how many people were killed to make these cities what they are, how much blood was spilled over time," guitarist Scott Ian told Rolling Stone. Director Jack Bennett commented, "We created this torture chamber, sitting below this horrible king's hall. This guy gets to play with his toys and look through the grate in the floor and see this group of people that he's essentially crushing. The idea is that this power is built on top of these people. It's brutal and there's a lot of amazing torture gags happening, but it all serves this concept that progress is brutal. Civilizations progress in a way that is violent."

The prisoner is taken away from the rest of the scene and laid across a table, while clips routinely pan back to the cloaked figure sitting at the table, crushing pieces of the mock city in its hand. One of the guards takes the blade of the halberd and makes two deep slices through the back of the prisoner and begins pulling out innards as the cloaked figure spreads black wings. When the act is complete, the crumbled mock city is replaced by rising metallic buildings, covered in blood. As the song fades out, one of the guards (comedian Brian Posehn) quips to another who is looking on in horror, "That was brutal," and the video ends on a lighthearted note.

Anthrax were recently featured in a different side of the video spectrum. The thrash act was profiled in the Smithsonian Institute's Museum of American History as part of their interactive "places of invention series. The video details the band's collaboration with Public Enemy, fusing rap with hip-hop.

Anthrax Talks For All Kings Album

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