• Voto:
Se io chiedessi di un certo tipo di Metal detto appropriatamente Thrash Metal, che risposte potrei sentirmi dare? Posso provare... e sicuramente mi sentirei piovere addosso una pioggia di "1986!", "Slayer!", "Metallica!", "Megadeth!"... questo per chi considera solo le band della celebre Bay Area Californiana.
Di nomi celebri il Thrash Metal, invece, ne ha anche in Europa; uno di questi nomi corrisponde a quello della band di "Onkel" Tom Angelripper, i tedeschi Sodom.
Il trio, formato da Angelripper al basso e alla voce, Frank Blackfire alla chitarra e Chris Witchhunter ai tamburi, inizialmente tacciato di totale incapacità e impreparazione tecnica, si fa un nome nella scena tedesca con l'ottimo "Persecution Mania" nel 1987, per raggiungere poi l'apice del proprio successo con qusto "Agent Orange" nel 1989.
"Agent Orange" è probabilmente oltre che l'apice a livello di fama, anche l'apice a livello musicale della band, che propone un Thrash molto diretto, senza fronzoli o soluzioni strane, senza troppo distaccarsi dallo stile che aveva caratterizzato il precedente "Persecution Mania"; il tema dominante è ancora la guerra, come facilmente si può intuire dal titolo, "Agent Orange", il Napalm.
Proprio di bombardamenti e di Napalm parla la devastante title track, una vera perla Thrash, che alterna momenti più cadenzati a sfuriate pazzesche, dove la batteria sembra quasi avere problemi a seguire la sporchissima voce di Tom, ma al suo termine, nessuna tregua, e la battaglia continua con "Tired And Red", velocissima e dall'aria monocorde, lascia sfiatati quando si giunge a un inaspettato solo di chitarra classica, che smentisce cosi l'impressione iniziale. E se "Incest" è una canzone densa di cambi di ritmo, tanto da dare l'impressione di essere formata da almeno tre canzoni diverse attaccate una all'altra, con "Remember The Fallen" appare, per la prima volta, un mid tempo, e come mid tempo si apre anche "Magic Dragon", dove il Drago in questione è un bombardiere AC-47, ma di nuovo, sorpresa, riecco la velocità folle e distruttiva di "Tired And Red", mentre la cinica e feroce voce di Angelripper spietatamente descrive l'infuriare del bombardamento per passare poi nella successiva "Exibition Bout" a parlare di un tema assolutamente nuovo alle mie orecchie, la corrida, con occhio ovviamente indignato e critico.
Quest'album è un continuo alternarsi di velocità e lentezza, una sorpresa continua, e sorprendente e strana appare "Ausgebombt", una canzone dalle tonalità allegre, quasi punk, il ritornello della quale esprime pienamente, per chi, come spesso accade, avesse dubbi, da che parte sono schierati i Sodom: "No Trade with Death No Trade with Arms Dispense the War Learn from the Past". "Baptism of Fire" subito termina quest'allegria, e ancora, cupamente, ci rituffiamo nelle atrocità della guerra, ma le sorprese ancora non sono finite, e dopo quest'ultima battaglia ecco a chiudere l'album la cover di "Don't Walk Away", dei britannici Tank, cover che al solito, come un pò tutte le cover di casa Sodom, viene snaturata e distorta, e si amalgama abbastanza bene all'interno dell'album.
Riassumendo, "Agent Orange" è un album assolutamente vario da collocare subito a fianco dei capolavori del 1986, un album per forza di cose sconsigliato a chi predilige un Thrash più melodico alla Metallica-Megadeth, e più adatto invece agli amanti del Thrash duro (Slayer per intenderci) e del Death. Un'album che sicuramente merita diversi ascolti prima di poter essere apprezzato pienamente.
Elenco tracce testi samples e video
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)
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