The day we’ve all been waiting for is here. After a drastic lineup change and a couple promising EPs, Sodom has returned with their sixteenth studio album, Genesis XIX. Among these drastic lineup changes is the return of classic guitarist, Frank Blackfire, who left the band for Kreator in ’89. There’s also the introduction new drummer Toni Merkel. To put things in perspective, Merkel was born the same year Blackfire left the band. Rounding things out is the addition of guitarist Yorck Segatz. When Sodom announced their transition as a quartet, I was just as surprised as everyone else. After all, they’ve been one of metal’s premiere power trios for nearly 40 years.
I’m not sure if it was these personnel changes, the songwriting inspiration that came with said changes, or a combination of both, but Genesis XIX is the kick in the ass we’ve desperately needed. I’d go as far to say this is the album Sodom has waited their entire career to make. Is it their magnum opus? Absolutely not. However, it’s easily their strongest since M-16 (2001).
Genesis XIX features a little bit of everything. Here’s a band who has played a key role in the development of extreme metal, yet continues to be inspired by the ongoing innovations in the genres they helped pioneer. The album kicks off with my choice cut, “Sodom and Gomorrah”. It’s an appropriate opener as it’s a throwback to the band’s original black metal sound. This infernal blackened thrasher reminds us how without Sodom, there’d be no Toxic Holocaust, Hellripper, etc.
The following track, “Euthanasia”, is unrelenting, militant, and outright violent. It’s everything you’d want from Sodom and more. Despite being out of the band for nearly three decades, Blackfire shows no signs of rust with a riff assault that sounds straight off Persecution Mania (1987). On the flip side of this and other no nonsense neck snappers, like the brazen blast beats of “Dehumanized” and merciless fury of “Glock ‘n’ Roll”, are what I like to call “album cut thrashers”.
The same way 70s rock and metal bands included lengthy, multi-faceted epics on their albums, so did the crop of 80s metal bands whom they inspired. Sodom began to incorporate this practice on Agent Orange (1989), and have been doing it ever since. The “album cuts” on here are the title track, “The Harpooner”, and “Waldo and Pigpen”. All are brutally brilliant in their own right, but the title track takes the prize. I loved it when it appeared on last year’s Out of the Frontline Trench EP and I still love it now.
As we go along this musical journey of Sodom’s career, it wouldn’t be complete without an acknowledgement of the band’s short lived death metal days. Tapping the Vein (1992) has long been a cult classic. Myself and others have hoped and prayed the band would one day return to this sound, even if for only one song. Well consider our prayers answered! While Merkel teases blastbeats throughout the entire album, he and the band go out all guns blazing on the finale, “Friendly Fire”. Sorry new thrash/death metal bands, but if your album closer isn’t this brutal, don’t bother sending me review inquiries.
So there you have it. It’s the old school “Witching Metal” you all know and love, caught in the clouds of a “Nuclear Winter”. All these years later and as always, “The Saw is the Law”. Those who oppose will be met by “Deathlike Silence”. And on that note, I better stop with the Sodom song references and give this album a 1-10 rating.
8 out of 10
Label: Steamhammer
Genre: Thrash Metal
For fans of: Slayer, Kreator, Toxic Holocaust