During the rising metal-scene during the 80's there was three bands in the thrash-metal genre in Germany who are called "Kreator", "Destruction" and "Sodom". These bands were some of the most biggest leaders and/or pioneers in Germany because of their quite raw and straight-ahead thrash-metal which is quite extreme too. "Sodom" is quite extreme in their music-style, combining elements from bands like "Hellhammer" and "Venom" with aggressive thrash-metal. The band members has always been three members, also when new line-ups was a fact they still remained as a trio and the lin-up for this album was:
Tom Angelripper - vocals and bass
Frank Blackfire - guitars
Witchhunter - drums
This album is called "Agent Orange" and it has a few quite big contrasts among the songs, most of the time there is fast and aggressive songs. Some songs sounds more like death-metal songs and the songs also sounds similar to black-metal material. But the biggest contrast songs sounds more like regular rock songs which sounds quite mellow compared to the other tracks. Some songs is also classic thrash-metal, fast drumming and aggressive singing but some songs sounds pretty similar to ealry "Anthrax" for example. Many people have considered this album to be equally as good as the album "Persecution Mania" and/or even better.
Some things that I liked about this album was this kind of 'contrast' for example, I think I would not liked this album if the songs were similar to each other. You can take short pauses between the songs and relax a bit than just listen to the same frantic noise all the time. Another thing that I thought were good about this album was the great balance between the instuments, the only little thing that I always look for is the bass but unfortunatly there is not a lot of bass in this album. The guitars are very good, they don't sound overdone and they are not to low, the riffing is the common high-speed riffing which is also quite uncatchy and chaotic. The drumming changes between maniac fast and hardrock slow, the drum patterns are variating and sometimes quite catchy. The vocals was not a special thing that I noticed so much, Tom sings very aggressive and his vocals appears to be more directed towards death-metal singing. His voice suits their music very well though.
Some things that I didn't enjoy so much was the lack of catchiness in the songs, there was not many songs that grabbed my attention because of the quite big contrasts in the songs. Songs that I found enjoying was songs like "Remeber The Fallen", a quite mellow song with some catchy tunes and good rhythm. The band is always balancing between death and thrash and I don't enjoy this kind of 'old-school' death-metal. Some songs that I didn't found as good was songs like"Incest" and "Tired And Red", both songs sounds more like death-metal than thrash in my opinion. "Ausgebombt" is the song that I thought were very similar to "Anthrax" style of thrash but an extremer voice, though I didn't found it good because the structure felt so 'simple'.
I guess thats all my friends, this is the first "Sodom" album that I have heard and I thought it didn't sound so good. I listen to much thrash-metal nowadays but I didn't found this album amusing, the songs sounds pretty much as old-school death-metal and that was the thing that disappointed me a bit. The other two bands "Kreator" and "Destruction" is far more better than this band, but it is wrong of me to judge this band now when I have only heard one album of many from this band. Anyway, if you enjoy extreme-thrash or death-metal you should get this album. I would not recommend it to people who like the more melodic thrash-metal bands.
PROS
+ Good balance between the instruments
+ Pretty good variation of songs
+ If you want extreme music, this is something for you
CONS
- When the band turns on the extreme it may sound like other similar sections in the songs
- Even some songs may songs quite similar
- There is not many catchy moments in the songs
RECOMMENDED TRACKS
-- Agent Orange
-- Remeber The Fallen
-- Exhibition Bout
The overall album rating will be: 3/5
