Fans don't often think of the nuts-and-bolts type of details of being in a band, but as Anthrax [ tickets ] haggled over which songs to include on "The Return of the Killer B's," guitarist Scott Ian said the metal mavens bartered back and forth like hardened traders.

''The last two days of sequencing felt like trading baseball cards,'' said Ian. ''To get one song on, you'd have to sacrifice something else. I would have loved to do a two-disc set.'' He cited ''A.I.R.'' and ''Caught in the Mosh'' as favorites of his that missed the cut. ''We had cover songs on there but then we were like, 'Why should we have cover songs on there? We should have our own songs on there.'''

The 16 tracks that made the grade include a pair of remixes by Ministry's Al Jourgenson--''Hy Pro Glo'' and the previously unreleased remix of ''Potters Field''--as well as Anthrax standards ''Indians,'' ''Bring The Noise'' and a newly recorded cover of the Temptations' ''Ball of Confusion'' that features both original singer Joey Belladonna and current crooner John Bush.

Ian said the Anthrax treatment of ''Ball of Confusion'' adheres fairly closely to the original, albeit with some beefed-up guitars. ''It's got a great groove and a good guitar riff. We didn't do a crazy heavy metal version of it. I think when we do covers we always stay pretty true to what the actual song was about.''

Slated for a Nov. 23 release by Beyond Records, ''The Return of Killer B's'' will be the first Anthrax LP after the dissolution of their last label, Ignition Records.

''I don't know what happened,'' said Ian of Ignition. ''They lost funding from Tommy Boy and then all of a sudden we had no label. So we were just stuck in this weird position. The record came out last year and did great and we were looking forward to the second leg of the tour, that was supposed to be at the beginning of this year. One day we turned around and the label was gone. It was like, 'Where did they go? What do we do?' It was very frustrating.''

Complete track listing: ''Bring The Noise,'' ''Only,'' ''Potters Field,'' ''Ball of Confusion,'' ''Crush,'' ''Room For 1 More,'' ''I Am the Law,'' ''Inside Out, ''Hy Pro Glo,'' ''Fueld,'' ''Among The Living,'' ''Got The Time,'' ''Indians,'' ''Antisocial,'' ''Madhouse,'' and ''I'm The Man.''