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| by Franceso Ferorelli |
Ah, the cover art gamble. The Internet in all its wisdom has yet to conjure up an adequate facsimile of this experience. Sometimes in high school if I had a few extra bucks, I’d buy a tape or CD because it looked cool — the ignorant music fan’s Hail Mary pass. This wouldn’t happen often, especially since random music usually disappointed. But every once in a while, awesome artwork meant awesome music.
Assassin’s debut, The Upcoming Terror (Steamhammer, 1986), was one such record. The cover’s yellow motif and Star Wars-style tank were as captivating as they were commanding. Inside were eight tracks of exemplary German thrash. While still in high school and rehearsing in the “cellar of a home for retired people,” Assassin fused Sodom’s crude menace with Kreator’s speedier-than-thou blasting. Massive kick drums way up in the mix turned every song into a percussive barrage. Robert Gonnella rasped standard but well-intentioned fare about war, fighting tyranny, and potential armageddon. An eponymous track featured a rousing, crowd-oriented chorus of “Go! Fight! Kill! Assassin!” The real treat, however, was the dueling lead guitars of Dinko Vekic and Juergen Scholz. They alternated seamlessly among corrosive chugging, baroque finger tapping, and some of the fastest tremolo-picked solos this side of Live Undead. The Upcoming Terror was the sound of kids playing at the ceiling of their enthusiasm and abilities. Attitude and energy this over-the-top couldn’t help but put a smile on my face.
Sadly, upon returning from a tour supporting Death Angel in ‘89-’90, Assassin’s rehearsal space was burglarized, and all their equipment was stolen. Uninsured, unable to afford replacement gear, and already conflicted internally, the band called it quits. But like many OG thrash bands, Assassin reunited in the early ’00s. Now they’re scheduled to headline the True Thrash Fest in Osaka next year.
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I took a chance on this in 1998, paying $3 for the record at a flea market. I was not disappointed. Thanks for calling attention to this. It deserves to be heard. "Speed of Light" is awesome.
You're absolutely right about the "cover art gamble". I've found many great albums that way. My best find was Holy Terror's "Mind Wars" and my weirdest was Steve Earle's "Copperhead Road". I was in high school and it had a skull on the cover, still was a good album though.
My memorable victories on cover art gambles as a kid were The Soup Dragons' Lovegod (fractals) and Rage Against the Machine's debut (monk self-immolation).
My friend Mike used to a whole spoken word performance based around the cover art gamble – he has it down to a science, from scoping the band's T-shirts on the back cover, to interpreting the thanks list. I think the only album which really fails the cover art test in every possible way and yet is pretty decent is Paradox "Product of Imagination", which actually you featured here a while back…
The follow-up, Interstellar Experience, is a far better album, with a far weirder cover?an outer space scarecrow who uses the band members' heads as press-on nails:
http://vibrationsofdoom.com/test/test2/covers/Assassin-IE.jpg
The demo is at blog.bazillionpoints.com !
That is one helluva cover. The Assassin demo is a fun listen. Here's the download link:
http://blog.bazillionpoints.com/?p=102
Thanks for sharing that, Ian.