Speak English or Die

by

S.O.D.

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Something happened to thrash/speed metal lately. Metallica cut their hair and thought they were Soundgarden. Megadeth kept its lineup intact and (surprise!) lost their edge. Slayer stayed true to its roots but retreated to the underground. It seemed as if the glorious history spawned by so many of these bands faded in the face of today's homogenous, politically correct fodder of neo-alterna/white-bread pop. Loose bands of rivetheads have kept the faith in defiance. Their numbers are few, but they can take comfort in knowing there exists an album that defines thrash/speed metal and has become the fuse between the genre it helped create and the punk rock that preceded it. It is a timeless collection that flips one big, collective bird at everyone and everything ever since these four at-the-time relative unknowns put (banged?) their heads together to create one of the harshest but silliest slabs of metal ever to grace the wax (plastic). Ladies and gentleman, S.O.D., "Stormtroopers of Death."

Do you like your thrash metal heavy, dark and fast? Do you believe all those hair bands (heavy tinsel, bubble metal, whatever) destroyed the art of metal? Good. Then sit down, shut up and hang on for dear life because this thirty-minute ride into the bowels of thrash is one heck of a trip you won't soon forget!

Formed in the mid-eighties by Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante and rhythm guitarist Scott Ian, former Anthrax/Nuclear Assault bassist Dan Lilker and rotund, punk-metal nobody (at the time) Billy Milano, S.O.D. began as a side project./joke for old friends but soon became a cult classic. It would become the bible for every metalhead the world over. The sound is dark. The guitars are heavy, but clean. Benante, a fast and furious double-bass thrasher, pounds out S.O.D.'s punk rhythms on what sounds like a three-piece kit. Milano is a growling and shouting beast of fury that will offend you, make you laugh and make you mosh. The lyrics - if you can understand them (the CD booklet has the lyrics - better use a magnifying glass) - are funny, and poignant. S.O.D. takes pot shots at almost everything: the down and depressed, immigrants, women and the men that love them, hair bands and terrorists. Everything else ranges from some pretty intense instrumental interludes ("March of the S.O.D." and "Chromatic Death" - both used as themes to MTV's "Headbangers Ball") to bits and pieces of wild abandon.

No "Heal the World". No "Let Love Rule." Just mosh. So if you think rock 'n' roll should be a vehicle for change in this world, it's best you walk. If smug, arrogant, pompous, P.C.-rock posers like Sting, Bono and Eddie Vedder touch your very soul, then you better run. S.O.D. "Speak English or Die" is a knee-jerk response to all that is wrong with heavy metal, music in general and, in a humorous way, much of what is wrong with the world, but these guys aren't here to preach. They're here to mosh. They're here to make you laugh. They're here to make you blush. Now give it up for the Stormtroopers of Death. Buy it today and experience metal history!