This classic record has been on my radar for years. Having finally plunged in and gotten to know its flavor of chaos, the year of release endows a context of immense appreciation. Before Slayer unleashed the unbridled fury of Reign In Blood, here stands one of the first Crossover Thrash projects encroaching on that timeless intensity. Stormtroopers Of Death is somewhat of a "supergroup" uniting musician from either side. With an intentionally unsavory and controversial, politically incorrect theme, they converge at a furious intersection of Thrash Metal and Hardcore Punk. The result is a wild, uncompromising assault on extreme music of the time. Perhaps Metallica's Kill Em All was the cutting edge before this? Although it may seem tame today, I find myself stilled stunned this was released in 1985!
Boasting big gritty distortion guitars, the fast and choppy slaps of power chord shuffling gets amplified by a fantastic percussive performance. Charlie Benante is a powerhouse of Hardcore groove and Grindcore blasts as his drumming often derails from mosh stomps into loose thumping rattles of chaos. Its an old-school flavor of blast beats so uncommon now yet it sounds utterly fantastic when unleashed. Its the duality with Scott Ian of Anthrax who, for a Thrash guitarist, gets the Hardcore energy just right. The constant shuffling between moshing grooves and unrestrained extremity is fun and fast. The songs blitz through an arsenal of riffs and ideas that simply excels.
The majority of songs clock in around two minutes. A helping of very short stunts chime in too. The six second Anti Procrastination Song a particularly fun one, an idea preceding Napalm Death's Guinness world record holding "You Suffer". All ideas are explored swiftly, rarely lingered on for more than a grasp of whats going on. They tend to roll into one big wash of frenetic aggression as its pummeling charges roll out the punches over and over again across its twenty one tracks. It does end on a bit of a whimper, limping out on a string of jokey seconds long songs that don't land well.
Often abbreviated to S.O.D, I realized the song Pussywhipped was mistaken for System Of A Down back in the file sharing days of Napster, a common issue with the service. It brought quite the smile to hear an oldie from my school days. I always thought it was an early band demo or something along those lines. Its also one of the albums best songs with razor fast riffs switching into big bouncing grooves as the drums batter down hard with snare rolls. I'm left with no illusions about how significant this record is in the landscape of extreme music. I reckon it will only ever grow on me with time. If id discovered this in my youth, I'd probably be worshiping it till this day!
Rating: 8/10