UMUR "Speak English or Die" is the debut full-length studio album by US, New York based crossover thrash metal act S.O.D. (Stormtroopers of Death). The album was released through Megaforce Records in August 1985. After Anthrax finished the recording of their second album "Spreading the Disease (1985)", they still had a bit of studio time left, and guitarist Scott Ian and drummer Charlie Benante decided to contact former Anthrax bassist Dan Lilker and Psychos bassist Billy Milano. The latter to perform vocals. S.O.D. formed in July 1985 and recorded a 63-song demo titled "Crab Society North" on the day of their formation. "Speak English or Die" was written and recorded in a week in August 1985. So S.O.D. was a fast put together musical project which was formed to have fun and play som fast and aggressive hardcore with offensive/silly lyrics. No one could have forseen how well the project was received and how many copies "Speak English or Die" ended up selling (today it has reached a worldwide sale of over 1 million copies).

So what is the winning formula, which made this album so popular? Other artists had fused aggressive hardcore and thrash metal before S.O.D. did, but none of them probably hit the balance as well as S.O.D. do here. Some of the heavy riffs on the album are absolutely crushing and paired with the ultra fast hardcore sections, and the often over-the-top offensive lyrics, that made for a winner. The album also feautures a raw, powerful, and organic sounding production, which suits the material perfectly and S.O.D. had a unique sound, which was instantly recognisable and in spite of the often quite extreme attack of the music, the tracks are also catchy and memorable. It´s almost impossible not to scream along to tracks like "Sargent 'D' & the S.O.D.", "United Forces", or "Kill Yourself" or at the very least crack a smile at the over-the-top offensive and silly lyrics to tracks like "Pre-Menstrual Princess Blues", "Pussy Whipped", or "Fuck the Middle East". The material on "Speak English or Die" are generally just infectiously catchy and highly entertaining. This was never meant to be taken seriously, but that doesn´t mean the music is a joke. Far from it.

"Speak English or Die" is a prime example of the magic that can happen if you put the right people together in a rehearsal room and give them a few hours of studio time to record the almost written-on-the-spot material they have produced. It doesn´t always have to be month long rehearsals and hours upon hours in recording studios for the final outcome to be worth a listen. Sometimes a more spontaneous process is more fruitful and the raw energy and intensity of the performances are better preserved. "Speak English or Die" is as authentic and immediate as they come. Warts and all, take it or leave it. A 4.5 star (90%) rating is deserved.

martindavey87 Stormtroopers of Death (S.O.D... duh!), is a crossover thrash side project of Anthrax members Scott Ian and Charlie Benante, along with Nuclear Assault’s Dan Lilker (formerly of Anthrax himself) and Billy Milano of the band M.O.D. Their debut album, ‘Speak English or Die’ was released in 1985, and is mostly a metal album with a punk mentality, with plenty of short, minute-long songs featuring satirical, aggressive, and downright offensive lyrics.

The problem for me is that it’s not 1985 anymore, and most of the satire, irony and downright offensive material goes straight over my desensitized head. The music is fast and heavy, and when the band do play for more than 30 seconds, there are a couple of decent headbangers here. But for the most part, these are all comical tracks, recorded by a bunch of friends who had some leftover studio time to kill. Oddly, this would go on to be a hugely influential album. Wish I could get that lucky.

Ultimately, this just isn’t my cup of tea, and the only reason it’s in my collection is because I’m a huge Anthrax fan. For what it’s worth, the songs ‘March of the S.O.D.’, ‘Sargent ‘D’ and the S.O.D.’ and ‘Milk’ are alright, and I’ve always found ‘What’s That Noise’ a pretty laughable track, but otherwise this is mostly immature and juvenile, and that’s probably exactly how the S.O.D. intended it to be.

‘Speak English or Die’ is not an album to be taken seriously, and whilst I’ve never been under the illusion that it was anything else, it’s just not something I’m into.

siLLy puPPy Something incredible happened after the release of the movie Spinal Tap in 1984. It suddenly gave metal music the permission to not take shit so seriously. While many metal rockers would continue down the narcissistic path and end up supporting the makeup and hairspray world making me wish i could travel back to the 80s and buy stock in the cosmetic industry, a few brave souls had the gonads to try something way different for the time. The year 1985 saw the development of humor in metal music but also began the era of crossover thrash that took the best offerings of hardcore punk and mixed them with the newly burgeoning elements of thrash metal. While similar bands like Carnivore entered the arena, i would have to credit STORMTROOPERS OF DEATH aka S.O.D. as the most interesting band of this era of not only crossing over the thrash and punk elements musically but basically not giving a flying bleep about political correctness. SPEAK ENGLISH OR DIE is their debut.

S.O.D. was an early splinter band from Anthrax where Ian Scott reunited with former “Fistful Of Metal” bassist and fellow Anthrax founder Dan Lilker along with another Anthrax entity, drummer Charlie Benante. The whole idea came from Scott Ian who after only one album with Anthrax was already chomping at the bit to express his less serious side where he could raise multiple middle fingers to the world and spit in the face of political correctness. It began as Scott’s doodlings of a character called “Sargent D” during the “Spreading The Disease” studio sessions where he would accompany his drawings with slogans like “I’m not racist, i hate everyone.” Keep in mind that this was the Reagan era in 1980s USA where faux conservatism was manufacturing all kinds of stupid nonsensical new paradigms of the religious right in their pursuit to sterilize all differences and to instill obsequious deference to the new power structure. Well fuck that!

This is the perfect antithesis to political correctness (today more than ever!) and guarantees to offend everybody if taken seriously in the least bit. In short, words can be weapons and don’t necessarily convey the reality of the true intent of the speaker. This album is all about deconstructing such verbal manipulations and creating a parallel faux universe where words construct a paradigm without any true meaning, so if you get all hoity toity and take this shit seriously then you are truly missing the point of the whole thing. Personally i don’t give a flying fuck about lyrics for the most part, at least in metal music and if i like the passion delivered in the music itself, that’s enough for me to get excited about. So fuck it all and bang your fucking heads, bitches.

This album is just brilliant. It somehow manages to incorporate all the principles of hardcore punk: shouted vocals, sloppy guitar riffs with bass and drums but thrashifies them with vengeance meaning guitar riffs are faster, drumbeats are faster and well, everything is faster! The punk meets metal elements have never fornicated as well as they do here and could possibly be prohibited under anti-beastiality laws in some states, but for me and my sickened brain, this is a cross genre ecstatic dance of the most opposing extreme musical genres dancing offering a musical truce in order to defeat a mutual enemy. Although i couldn’t swear to it, i would bet that this could qualify as an unholy sacramental listening experience endorsed by Jello Biafra, James Hetfield and Jesus anti-fucking-christ himself. For 1985 this must have come as a complete left field curve ball. Thrash music was merely in its nascency and suddenly already splintering off into a fireworks display of sonic pyrotechnics.

All i can say is that i truly dig this shit. S.O.D. nails the punk elements, marries it with thrash ferocity, injects the proper comedic politically derisory elements which have no true intended meaning but are designed to be as societally caustic as the distorted musical frenzy that has solely one goal in mind and that is to offend everyone except for, of course, the unoffendable! This is one of the fucking narliest metal albums ever to come out at any point in time. It is a short but sweet experience not even a half hour in length but manages to push all the proper dysphemistic societal buttons for the ages. This is relevant even in this day and age. With all the political hyperbole trying to create societal divisions, one has to appreciate a metal band that can just say FUCK OFF WORLD!

Quickie trivia: The track “Milano Mosh” was the theme track on MTV’s “Headbanger’s Ball” in the 80s and 90s AND… well, that’s it really.

This album REALLY stands out amongst the competition. Every single element is perfect. This is a classic of the ages.

It is basically celebrates a “coming-of-age” mentality when you realize that the world is nothing more than fucked up mind control shit where everyone is trying to fuck with your mind and induct you into their cult but once you stop giving a serious flying fuck, everything is OK once again.

So go fuck yourselves and listen to this goddamn masterpiece already.