Originally Posted by Frownland

I don't, no.

Originally Posted by Trollheart

“Angel of death” concerns the Nazi scientist Josef Mengele, who plied his evil trade out of Auschwitz and was also portrayed in the movie “The boys from Brazil.” Noted for his awful experiments on humans, he was indeed dubbed the Angel of Death, and Slayer's song led to them being --- mistakenly --- characterised as Nazi sympathisers, a label they continue to deny.

The song? It opens with a stop-start guitar which quickly metamorphoses into a speed freak's wet dream and with a scream from Araya the opener is under way, belting along faster than a diving Stuka. I have to say, given the significance of lines like ”Infamous butcher”, ”Sickening ways to achieve the Holocaust” and ”Pathetic harmless victims” I find it hard to believe anyone could misinterpret Hanneman's lyrics as glorifying Nazism. This is clearly an angry accusation levelled at the evil doctor, a graphic depiction of the horrors the concentration camp inmates were forced to endure, but no homage to Mengele. Still, some people will I guess see and hear what they want to hear, or what they think they should. The vocal is harsh and accusatory, and you can actually feel the pain in Araya's voice as he spits the lines, particularly the no doubt unintentionally ironic ”Destroying without mercy/ To benefit the Aryan race.”

The final lines, too, are heavily critical of surely the Allies for failing to capture and bring this evil monster to trial, where he would have almost certainly been hanged. As Araya snarls ”Rancid Angel of death/ Flying free” he must surely be referring to the fact that, despite all the efforts to bring him to justice, Mengele eluded capture and only died aged sixty-nine in a swimming accident in Brazil. Hardly the fate that should befall such a callous and heartless mass-murderer. There's a lot of anger in this song, smouldering outrage and hatred, but stark sympathy and solidarity with the millions who died in the camps, particularly those who died under Mengele's horrific regime. As has been said before, never forget, or their deaths will have been in vain.

Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien

There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamiting factories and power-stations; I hope that, encouraged now as ‘patriotism’, may remain a habit! But it won’t do any good, if it is not universal.