SODOM - In War and Pieces CD Review

SODOM - In War and Pieces CD
SPV/Steamhammer

I give respect to Tom Angelripper for still keeping his long time band alive and for carrying the torch of Teutonic Thrash for close to 30 years. Now with that said I can't say all of what I've heard from them after the late 80's has been terrific. In fact most of the time it's been average to painfully bearable and finally horrible. Much of my complaint comes from liking their first handful of releases which started out as blackened thrash to full on thrash. So don't hate me for being around when that stuff came out. Since 1990 they've been musically all over the place finally trying their hand at straight forward thrash again. Secondly Angelripper didn't have a consistent line-up to make things jell for a while. His present guitarist and drummer have been with him since 1997 which is a record by SODOM band member standards. The strangest part of all is that SODOM has a huge younger fanbase nowadays part of which stems from their self titled 2006 release and the re-recording of In the Sign of Evil in 2007. Personally I don't consider that a credit since these same people love MACHINE HEAD and TRIVIUM.

Whatever the case this new one is more of what you heard on their 2006 release which is in tune with the modern Thrash crowd. I take that back since I should say "the modern mainstream Thrash" crowd. With the exception of Angelripper's well kept vocals I wouldn't of known this was SODOM. There's way too much melody at certain times on here. Guitarist Bernd Kost breaks into his Slash imitation on some cuts but hey the drumming and sound is top notch. The opening title cut plus the Hardcore/Punk influenced "Hellfire" start things off well but after that it's hit and miss, definitely more miss. There are times where they sound like a silly metalcore band. I was expecting Angelripper to break into a rap at some point. Talk about being shocked, they're even borrowing from METALLICA with the riffs and whatafuck another "god" song titled "God Bless You". Yeah I know it's a song about war. They've been singing about war since 1989. The only thing going for this package is the bonus Live at Wacken 2007 disc. But that's only if you're a true diehard SODOM fan.

Label: http://www.spv.de/

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/sodom

Official: http://sodomized.info/