Anthrax gets ready to go back to their roots on new album.

Blabbermout.net is reporting that ANTHRAX drummer Charlie Benante spoke to Revolver magazine about the status of the recording sessions for the band's long-awaited new studio album,"Worship Music", tentatively due in September via Megaforce Records in the U.S. And Nuclear Blast Records in Europe.

"Worship Music", which was originally supposed to be released in 2009 and be the band's first CD with singer Dan Nelson, will mark the first new ANTHRAX recording to feature vocalist Joey Belladonna in 20 years.

"Some of the songs we tweaked, some of the songs we did more than tweak," said drummer Charlie Benante. "Some we started from scratch, and some were written just for this album."

"With Joey singing them, they sound like classic ANTHRAX. The hair on my arms stood up when he started singing them. It was ANTHRAX once again."

Guitarist Scott Ian agreed. "The songs like sound like metal. They sound like ANTHRAX circa 1987 through a 2011 filter."

"I think this record is more of a celebration for us," Benante added. "We haven't had a new record since 2003. The ups and downs in between really reflect the mood of this record. There is a lot of aggression, emotion and power. I feel like this is once again back to our New York style and attitude."

Song titles set to appear on "Worship Music" include "Fight 'Em 'Til You Can't", "I'm Alive", "Crawl", "The Giant", "Earth On Hell" and "Down Goes The Sun".

During a chat with RockMusicStar.com, ANTHRAX singer Joey Belladonna was asked if working on the band's new songs was a challenge because of the fact that most of the material was written for previous vocalist, Dan Nelson. "I kind of hate that someone was already singing this stuff and now I have to kind of dance around it and do it all over," he said. "They [the rest of ANTHRAX] have in their mind already how they want it to sound, so it's kind of hard to shake it away. They are not going to say to me, 'Go on and do something totally different and we will just dig it.' [Laughs] It's hard, but I'm not worried about it."