Maggots: The Record

Maggots: The Record was recorded in 1987 and set 25 years in a future where environmental abuse and the burning of fossil fuels have created a greenhouse effect leading to an end of the world scenario. Called by many the first “thrash metal opera”, the central theme of the album is an end of the world scenario that follows from genetic engineering and global warming, something that was not at all part of the general public awareness of the time. A group of scientists trying to eliminate pollution in the rivers and oceans develop an RNA retrovirus designed to eat it all up and then die once the pollution has been consumed. But global warming leading to the flooding of land areas instead puts the virus in contact with the “common maggot” leading to a mutated form of maggot that doubles in size with each generation looking for more and more things to consume. In the “end of the world” finale, cities are being destroyed and humans consumed by giant maggots a horrific metaphorical end to a world blind to human consumption and environmental destruction.