On August 21, 1990, ANTHRAX released Persistence of Time through Megaforce and Island — the darkest, heaviest and most serious record of their career. The band had built a reputation on shorts, skateboards and songs about comic books; here they buried the jokes entirely. The album was written in the aftermath of disaster: in January 1990 a fire destroyed their Yonkers rehearsal studio along with more than $100,000 of equipment, forcing them to relocate mid-project. What emerged over 58 minutes was slower, more progressive and preoccupied with intolerance, paranoia and time itself. It reached number 24 on the Billboard 200, earned a Grammy nomination for Best Metal Performance and went gold in January 1991. Their cover of Joe Jackson's "Got the Time" became an unlikely staple. It was Joey Belladonna's last full album before John Bush replaced him — and Belladonna would not record another until 2011.
