Who says Metal can’t be fun? S.O.D. Speak English or Die from 1985 is a tongue in cheek look at the metal scene and the world around them at the time. Formed in 1985 by Anthrax guitar player Scott Ian as a way to unwind between recording albums and touring with his main band the album is a collection of humorous short sharp and sweet songs that combine the precision of heavy metal with the anger of Hardcore punk music. Also recruited for this was Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante, Ex-Anthrax bass player Dan Lilker and M.O.D. singer Billy Milano.
The lyrics (I’m assuming written by Milano and Ian) were delibratley offensive and humourous and while the record didn’t sell a lot on its initial release it gained cult status and started to really shift some units in the years following. As their popularity increased so did the accusations of racism. The funniest part of this is the band are quite obviously of ethnic extraction (Jewish and italian extraction) so anyone who gave the matter even more than a few seconds of thought would have realised it was all done tongue in cheek.
The album opens up with the crushing riffage of “March of the SOD” and what follows is a lesson in crushing simplicity with “Sargent D”, the bands standout songs “Kill Yourself”, “Milano Mosh” and “Speak English or Die!” which is probably what landed them in the controversy shit storm the band found themselves in over the years. Tongue in cheek lyrics aside the music on this is awesome, tight and fast and performed by very capable musicians.
The Carnage continues with “United Forces” and the aptly titled “Chromatic Death”. We’re now about half way through the album and by now the listener has been thoroughly crushed by the heaviness of this record.
The second side from a music point of view kind of looses the momentum a bit. There’s some humourous interludes and short blasts of agression but really only a couple of what I’d call real songs. “Pi Alpha Nu” and “Freddy Krueger” and the show stopping song “Milk” about Billy Milano’s breakfast. “Fuck the Middle East” continues the pure brilliance of this band.
This is an all time classic of the metal genre, a fart is a room full of well polished metal bands like Maiden or Ozzy topping the charts. It was something Heavy Metal needed at the time and still serves as a great listen to this day.
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