Sodom

Sodom belongs to German thrash metal’s “Big Four” together with Kreator, Tankard, and Destruction and ranks among the style’s most enduring and widely influential acts. During the early 1980s the band absorbed influences from Mercyful Fate, Accept, Venom and others along with the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, forging a harder, more streamlined variant of the music. Landmark releases such as Persecution Mania (1988) and Agent Orange (1989) appeared next, while subsequent efforts including Tapping the Vein (1992), Sodom (2006), Epitome of Torture (2013) and Genesis XIX (2020) folded in ingredients of death, crossover and groove metal. Although the lineup has undergone repeated changes, the group has stayed active without interruption, bassist/vocalist Tom Angelripper remaining its sole permanent member.

The band originated in 1981 in Gelsenkirchen, where its first configuration comprised Tom Angelripper, Aggressor, Bloody Monster and Arius Blasphemer. Seeking to avoid careers in the local coal mines, the musicians—now reduced to a trio after Arius’s dismissal, Grave Violator’s arrival in place of Aggressor and Witchhunter’s replacement of Bloody Monster—recorded demos that led to the 1985 debut EP In the Sign of Evil. The five-track set, raw and unyielding, helped ignite the black-metal movement, introduced fan favorites “Outbreak of Evil” and “Blasphemer,” and attracted the interest of Steamhammer. With Angelripper, Witchhunter and newly recruited guitarist Frank Blackfire forming the core, Sodom issued a succession of commanding albums on the label, beginning with the 1986 release Obsessed with Cruelty.

Sodom reduced its Satanic imagery on the follow-up Persecution Mania (1987), shifting from black metal to thrash while adopting a sharper political stance. Maintaining leadership of the rising Teutonic thrash scene, the band delivered the widely praised Agent Orange in 1989, the first thrash album to enter the German charts and the point at which Sodom achieved commercial breakthrough. Blackfire departed the next year to join Kreator and was succeeded by Michael Hoffmann, who appeared on his first studio recording with the 1990 album Better Off Dead. Tapping the Vein (1992) introduced death-metal elements and new guitarist Andy Brings, who replaced Hoffmann, and also marked Witchhunter’s dismissal after the supporting tour. Angelripper brought in former Holy Moses and Living Death drummer Atomic Steif for the sixth studio album, the punk-infused Get What You Deserve (1994). Masquerade in Blood (1995) continued the experimentation by adding groove-metal textures to the band’s blend of crossover thrash and death metal, whereas ’Til Death Do Us Unite (1997) and Code Red (1999) returned to the classic Teutonic thrash sound of earlier years.

The Vietnam War-themed concept album M-16 appeared in 2001 and was followed in 2003 by Sodom’s first live record, One Night in Bangkok. Declaring that “every band needs a self-titled album,” Angelripper, guitarist Bernd “Bernemann” Kost and drummer Bobby Schottkowski issued Sodom in 2006; in 2007 Witchhunter and Grave Violator rejoined for The Final Sign of Evil, a re-recording of the debut EP augmented by bonus tracks—Witchhunter passed away the following year after a prolonged illness. A remastered Agent Orange surfaced in 2010 alongside the new studio album In War and Pieces. Epitome of Torture (2013) marked the band’s highest Billboard debut at the time and stood as its fifteenth full-length release. Decision Day (2016) repeated the strong chart performance both domestically and internationally. The Partisan EP arrived in 2018, featuring the return of Frank Blackfire together with drummer Stefan Hüskens and second guitarist Yorck Segatz. Drummer Toni Merkel joined for the 2020 album Genesis XIX. Bombenhagel, a three-song EP containing two new tracks and a re-recorded version of the song “Bombenhagel” from the 1987 album Persecution Mania, was released in 2022, followed the next year by the compilation 40 Years at War: The Greatest Hell of Sodom. In 2023 Sodom maintained its output with the EP 1982, which presented re-recordings of the early songs “Witching Metal,” “Victims of the Death,” “Let’s Fight in the Darkness of Hell” and “Equinox” plus the new title track.