An album from 1991 that predicted September 11 and the attack on America.
On August 2, 1990, the Iraqi president Saddam Hussein invaded the neighboring State of Kuwait in the name of an ancient but unfounded claim by Baghdad to recover territory it claimed was Iraqi. The UN, led by the United States, after a futile ultimatum, declared war on the despotic Middle Eastern ruler.
It is the First Gulf War.
Paul Speckmann, in 1990 is an artist well-versed in unrest and shadowy conflicts.
Not surprisingly, in 1984 he founded the Master band, which laid the foundations for all the death and decay that would later emerge from American metal.
It's not enough for him.
Watching the Iraqi conflict on TV, he feels an almost visionary and apocalyptic urge.
He doesn't know yet the term "Global Terrorism," which won't be used in the news until a decade later, but he senses an impending danger, a monster with a thousand tentacles that could destroy all the certainties of the "American Dream."
Driven by an almost diabolical urgency, he forms a Power-Trio with Aaron Nickeas on drums and Dean Chioles on guitars and composes an album whose cover alone shows what will be the iconic image of the entire twenty-first century: a burning building (terribly reminiscent of the New York Twin Towers attack).
The music: a powerful and hypnotic blend of American Thrash metal and instrumental parts bordering on the most sulfuric Prog.
"Blood For Oil," the first track, is the key song of the entire album.
An unstoppable tank of riffs and tempo changes accompanied by Speckmann's anguished chants that make use of unprecedented and horrific vocal effects in the choruses:
"Will trade our blood for oil
Until our hands have been soiled
Civilians, pawns and kings
Will pay the penalty".
It's the mass destruction that many novelists will tell in a thousand different ways.
And again:
"Countless bodies, piles of ashes
Severed mortar, wasteful clashes
Is the worth the whole disaster
Is the life, we’re dying faster".
Tracklist and Samples
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