•
Rating:
If I were to ask about a certain type of Metal aptly called Thrash Metal, what answers might I hear? I can try... and I would surely hear a rain of "1986!", "Slayer!", "Metallica!", "Megadeth!"... this for those who consider only the bands from the famous Californian Bay Area.
However, Thrash Metal has famous names also in Europe; one of these names corresponds to the band of "Onkel" Tom Angelripper, the Germans Sodom.
The trio, formed by Angelripper on bass and vocals, Frank Blackfire on guitar, and Chris Witchhunter on drums, initially accused of total incapacity and technical unpreparedness, made a name for themselves in the German scene with the excellent "Persecution Mania" in 1987, reaching the peak of their success with this "Agent Orange" in 1989.
"Agent Orange" is probably besides being the peak in terms of fame, also the peak musically for the band, which offers a Thrash that is very direct, without frills or strange solutions, without straying too far from the style that characterized the previous "Persecution Mania"; the dominant theme is still war, as can be easily inferred from the title, "Agent Orange", Napalm.
The devastating title track speaks precisely of bombings and Napalm, a real Thrash gem, which alternates more cadenced moments with insane blasts, where the drums seem to almost have trouble keeping up with Tom's gritty voice, but at its end, no respite, and the battle continues with "Tired And Red", incredibly fast and monotonous, leaving you breathless when it reaches an unexpected classical guitar solo, thus disproving the initial impression. And if "Incest" is a song dense with rhythm changes, so much so that it gives the impression of being made up of at least three different songs glued together, with "Remember The Fallen" appears, for the first time, a mid-tempo, and "Magic Dragon" also opens as a mid-tempo, where the Dragon in question is an AC-47 bomber, but again, surprise, here comes the insane and destructive speed of "Tired And Red", while Angelripper's cynical and fierce voice mercilessly describes the fury of the bombing to move on to the next "Exibition Bout" to speak of a theme absolutely new to my ears, bullfighting, with an obviously indignant and critical eye.
This album is a continuous alternation of speed and slowness, a continuous surprise, and "Ausgebombt" appears surprising and strange, a song with cheerful, almost punk tones, whose chorus fully expresses, for those who, as often occurs, might have doubts, on which side Sodom stands: "No Trade with Death No Trade with Arms Dispense the War Learn from the Past". "Baptism of Fire" immediately ends this cheerfulness, and once again, darkly, we dive into the atrocities of war, but the surprises are still not over, and after this last battle, the album closes with the cover of "Don't Walk Away", by the British band Tank, a cover which as usual, like a bit all the covers by Sodom, is distorted and twisted, and integrates quite well within the album.
In summary, "Agent Orange" is an absolutely varied album to be placed immediately alongside the masterpieces of 1986, an album inevitably not recommended for those who prefer a more melodic Thrash in the Metallica-Megadeth style, and more suitable instead for lovers of hard Thrash (Slayer, to be clear) and Death. An album that surely deserves several listens before it can be fully appreciated.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 Agent Orange (06:04)
Operation >>Ranch Hand<<
Spray down the death
Down on their farms
Assault against the population
Suppress by military arms
Only you prevent the forest
Legalize the war
They are deprived of their power
Eradication without law
Agent Orange
Agent Orange
Agent Orange
A fire that doesn't burn
All the marks erased long ago
Scars are healed up
Cancer creeps into their innocent souls
Memorials of flesh and blood
Have survived unlawfully punished
Poisoned till the end of their lives
Physical deformity
What medicine will help?
Still births will rise
Agent Orange
Agent Orange
Agent Orange
A fire that doesn't burn
Grieved weak hearts are crying
Waiting for the end
In this condition they are dying
Newborns of the damned
Preserved in test tubes for generations
Vicious circle of transmission
There's no way for reparations
Must live with chemical agent called
Agent Orange
Agent Orange
Agent Orange
A fire that doesn't burn
Agent Orange... burn
Agent Orange... burn
Agent Orange... burn
03 Incest (04:40)
Scour to find new ways of love
Denounce moralisers
Ethic without prohibition and laws
Give no credence to church
Satisfaction in the sign of crime
The meaning of my life
There is no sin all down the line
No repentance pay the price
Number one in the list of misdeeds
Persuade my sister
She shook and gasped in licentious greed
Turned by mutual whisper
Wrapped up in bewitched body shower
Forbidden fruits taste better
Primitive caress to burn out the power
Nymphomania dressed in leather
Incest
Incest
Incest
You take your virtues in a tow
And commit a sin
By defects in your character
You will always imagine
The number of all your virtues
Wipe out the stains and outrage
Realise your exceptional dreams
Incest grin and bear it
You take your virtues in a tow
And commit a sin
By defects in your character
You will always imagine
The number of all your virtues
Wipe out the stains and outrage
Realise your exceptional dreams
Incest grin and bear it
My inclination is a portrait of myself
When I look inside the broken glass
Enjoy sweetest lust and I am feeling well
Moral dilemma without wrath
Crave for you in ecstasy of my mind
Love you to the quick
Don't know what has happened to me
The condition of a bitch
Incest
Incest
Incest
You take your virtues in a tow
And commit a sin
By defects in your character
You will always imagine
The number of all your virtues
Wipe out the stains and outrage
Realise your exceptional dreams
Incest grin and bear it
04 Remember the Fallen (04:20)
Honour the fallen heroes
See their last resting place
Perished in the battle of nations
Where they found eternal peace
Do you know the use of their decorations?
Awarded for patriotism
They left their life in fire
But don't know even why
Remember the fallen
Remember the fallen
To the command of despotic dictators
They marched to fight in a senseless war
Most of them were just puppets and children
The battle was lost before it began
Brotherly in heart and hand
Know that they never come back
With combined effort
And the believe in god
Their duty only as cannon fodder
Kamikaze as living bombs
Driven into the open knife
Deceitful and malicious
Remember the fallen
Remember the fallen
Their tormented souls will never rest
To pay us back for their innocent death
No quarter shed our proud blood
Retaliation on the warpath
05 Magic Dragon (06:00)
Camp duc lap calm before the storm
They fight with drowsiness
Rubbed their eyes must stay awake
Stared into the darkness
Disastrous noise from far behind
Imminent attack splits their minds
Forces proceed to counter thrust
Without doubt they will rush
Moon cast a shadow menace comes near
Formed as an aeroplane
Take up weapons to defend the boundary line
Do not want to loose the reign
Disastrous noise from far behind
Imminent attack splits their minds
Forces proceed to counter thrust
Without doubt they will rush
Night into day when flare bombs detonate to burn the sky
Our hostile positions are made out there is no place to hide
The AC-47 send their flames from all the barrels
6000 shots per minute to make a hill all level
Magic Dragon
Let sheets of fire hail down the base
Magic Dragon
A crucial test the enemy will never raise
Magic Dragon
Spit tracer bullets expose our hiding place
Magic Dragon
Iron monsters destroy with rage
Pilots circle their machines as eagles in the sky
Navigator tactical warfare they know the reason why
Because their orders are clear: Crush them to win the war
Magic Dragon
Let sheets of fire hail down the base
Magic Dragon
A crucial test the enemy will never raise
Magic Dragon
Spit tracer bullets expose our hiding place
Magic Dragon
Iron monsters destroy with rage
First squadron obey the command: Take off higher
No Vietcong can move in sustained fire
Orders are clear - Win the war
Magic Dragon
Let sheets of fire hail down the base
Magic Dragon
A crucial test the enemy will never raise
Magic Dragon
Spit tracer bullets expose our hiding place
Magic Dragon
Iron monsters destroy with rage
07 Ausgebombt (03:04)
We've drudged many decades to live free from care
The war began it was enough to drive us to despair
A time when bread was more worth than pure gold
We missed the warmness saved us from the wintry cold
No trade with death
No trade with arms
Dispense the war
Learn from the past
Ausgebombt
Ausgebombt
Ausgebombt
Ausgebombt
Slogans to hold out till end dreams ramble to the sky
Evacuated far away we left everything behind
Fifty hundredweight bombs dashed us to the ground
When military air raids stormed the land abound
No trade with death
No trade with arms
Dispense the war
Learn from the past
Ausgebombt
Ausgebombt
Ausgebombt
Ausgebombt
Death
Arms
War
Past
Ausgebombt
Ausgebombt
Ausgebombt
Ausgebombt
Political tyranny exercised by morbid despots
Bombardment of fire wasn't win but loss
Corpses buried under ruins and debris
No more war the solution all the nation need
No trade with death
No trade with arms
Dispense the war
Learn from the past
Ausgebombt
Ausgebombt
Ausgebombt
Ausgebombt
09 Don't Walk Away (02:55)
[Cover : Tank]
Get down six feet under
I wish she would, your fat blanket mother
She growls and roars like thunder
A mouth so big, the eighth world wonders
She wants me to throw her daughter away
And pick her up instead...
Don't walk away (Don't walk away)
Don't walk away (Don't walk away)
Yes another cunning plot, to get me under her covers
Dior stockings and nothing on top
She ain't like a normal mother
I wish I was a million miles away
So I can't hear her say...
Don't walk away (Don't walk away)
Don't walk away (Don't walk away)
Don't don't walk away
Don't don't walk away
Don't don't walk away
When will this dreadful nightmare end?
I really don't want another
That fat blanket woman drives me round and bend
How can you get lower when hell is in the gutter
I wish I was a million miles away
So I can't hear her say...
Don't walk away (Don't walk away)
Don't walk away (Don't walk away)
Don't walk away (Don't walk away)
Don't walk away (Don't walk away)
Loading comments slowly
