There are very few examples of bands that had a completely flawless career. I'm pretty sure that there were or are bands who manage to release albums that just makes above the average level, but
Sodom and their fellow competitors
Destruction and
Kreator have released both awesome and poor albums. The only difference between these bands and other metal bands in the world is that these guys have been playing thrash-metal for almost twenty years while others have just walked in and walked out just as fast.
Sodom has the cruellest sound from the legendary German thrash-trio in my opinion, as they blended thrash-metal, black-metal, death-metal and speed-metal with ease, but that does not mean that they sounded like metal bands of today.
Persecution Mania balanced on a thin line between thrash and death-metal and
Tapping The Vein was more like a death-metal album,
Code Red was an album where the band tried to forge their old style with their newer style. But then we have albums like
M-16 and
Sodom which sounded more like concentrated thrash-metal. "What did they sound in between?" you might think, and that's what I'm about to explain for you now.
Sodom perhaps didn't changed their sound so drastically as
Kreator did for a short period of time but you can hear that there are differences throughout
Sodom's material.
Masquerade In Blood might be one of their more overlooked albums, but it is not as bad as you thought it would be, because I think that this album is perhaps one of their heaviest albums but there are of course a few flaws in this album though. In 1995
Sodom released
Masquerade In Blood, an album which could be a bit comparable with
Slayer's God Hates Us All. This album delivers some of the bands most heaviest material yet in my opinion, with
Tom Angelripper's throaty and harsh raspy vocals, his mechanical and powerful bass and the songs have rushed and fast tempos, which makes this album to be quite repetitive but yet forceful thrash attack. I said that the album could be a bit repetitive and by that I mean that the band seems to switch back and fourth in their music.
Masquerade In Blood,
Peacemaker's Law, and
Hydrophobia are three songs that sound a bit more refreshing than songs like
Fields Of Honour,
Verrecke! and
Unwanted Youth, which sound more like some kind of hybrids of their past songs from the
Agent Orange-era and forth. And then we have additional songs like (for example)
Braindead,
Mantelmann and
Gathering Of Minds which sound more like death-metal creations, mostly because of
Tom's growling vocals.
I'm pretty pleased by this album I must say, and the first thing I thought was good was that the bass was almost over powering the guitars, which I love. This time it was the bass that stood for the thick wall of sound and not the guitars, but I admit that the guitars are also quite strong and loud but the bass is the dominating instrument on this album. Another thing I thought was good was the variety among the songs, some of them had great riffs and structure like
Masquerade In Blood and
Peacemaker's Law making them quite heavy, catchy and somewhat of standout tracks.
Tom's vocals were also a good thing on this album, as he goes almost berserk with his vocals, switching from his harsh and raspy style towards
Obituary-growls. You will find a good dose of energy in this album too, and I would say that this album only has two songs that have a bit slower pace than the other songs, which are
Gathering Of Minds and
Hydrophobia.
I think that this album was a bit repetitive at times actually and that was because of the drums. This album had too much of the same drumming.
Atomic Steif (Guido Richter) was the present drummer during this album and I thought he could've used other types of drum styles, patterns, or something out of the ordinary. All the songs had basically the same drum pattern except that there was a small variety but within the actual patterns, and it made the album quite one-dimensional and I think that it will bore people a bit. A second thing I thought was a bit bad was
Tom's vocal work, I liked it but here is the moment where I will compare this to
Slayer's God Hates Us All: I think
Tom goes out to hard with his vocals. This factor would be a bit too intimidating to people who want to hear how
Sodom sounds like, as this album would rather scare people than impressing them. Not a good beginner album in my opinion.
Was this a bad
Sodom record? Definitely not but it wasn't the best either, but fans would enjoy this quite much while beginners would perhaps reject it instead. I really liked the overwhelming bass,
Tom's vocals for the majority of the time and the good variety of songs, but it gets a bit boring and repetitive with time and this is also an album where you pick a certain amount of songs that you like and then you don't pay attention to the rest of the material. A great album for
Sodom fans but not good for newcomers.
*Short note -
Beware that the songs that are called Verrecke! and
Mantelmann are sung totally in German
Band Members
Tom Angelripper – bass and vocals
Andy Brings – guitars
Atomic Steif – drums
Pros
+ Very heavy material
+ The bass creates a great wall of sound
+ A quite energetic album
+ The album has pretty good variety among the songs
Cons
- It gets repetitive and boring with time
- Not a good album for newcomers
- The vocals could be a bit boring as well
- The album would've been better with if there was more diversity in the drum work.
This album is great for the moment but you will eventually get bored by it, final rating will be a 3.5/5
