“War Ensemble”: It’s not a pretty song by any means. An aural blitzkrieg whose chorus climaxes with the lines, ‘The final swing is not a drill/It’s how many people I can kill,’ it is filled with brutal images and blaring guitars, all propelled at the breathless pace of thrash metal.
–J. D. Considin...
[Verse 1]
Propaganda death ensemble
Burial to be
Corpses rotting through the night
In blood-laced misery
Scorched earth, the policy
The reason for the siege
The pendulum, it shaves the blade
The strafing air blood raid
[Verse 2]
Infiltration push reserves
Encircle the front lines
Supreme art of strategy
Playing on the minds
Bombard till submission
Take all to their graves
Indication of triumph:
The numbers that are dead
[Pre-Chorus]
Sport the war
War support
[Chorus]
The sport is war, total war
When victory's really massacre
The final swing is not a drill
It's how many people I can kill
[Guitar Solo: Jeff Hanneman]
[Pre-Chorus]
Sport the war
War support
[Chorus]
The sport is war, total war
When victory's really survival
The final swing is not a drill
It's how many people I can kill
[Bridge]
Be dead, fiend from above
When darkness falls
Descend onto my sights
Your fallen walls
Spearhead break through the lines
Flanked all around
Soldiers of attrition
Forward their ground
[Bridge]
Regime prophetic age
Old in its time
Flowing veins run on through
Deep in the Rhine
Center of the web
All battles scored
What is our war crimes?
Era forever more
War
[Guitar Solo: Kerry King]
[Verse 3]
Propaganda war ensemble
Burial to be
Bones, shining by the night
In blood-laced misery
Campaign of elimination
Twisted psychology
When victory is to survive
And death is defeat
[Pre-Chorus]
Sport the war
War support
[Chorus]
The sport is war, total war
When the end is a slaughter
The final swing is not a drill
It's how many people I can kill
War Ensemble was written by Tom Araya & Jeff Hanneman.
War Ensemble was produced by Rick Rubin.
Slayer released War Ensemble on Tue Oct 09 1990.