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›Sodom – The Final Sign of Evil
I have never understood bands who re-release their first CD’s, because it is undoubtedly the case that the CD is no longer representative of the band as a whole. Sometimes I think it is just a thinly veiled cash in, trying to get die hard fans to give the band their hard earned cash. In the case of this CD though I do feel that the aim was to demonstrate to the newer thrash audience the roots of thrash. The problem for me is that thrash has changed and amalgamated so much in the twenty years since this CD was made, that whilst it remains one of the roots of the genre, it is also markedly outdated. This is not helped by the frankly poor quality recording which means that the moments of inevitable musical genius and truly great thrash that are in relatively plentiful supply in the album are significantly tainted.
The first track ‘The Sin of Sodom’ is a fine example of this. It is thrashy and fast paced, the chorus in particular is surprisingly catchy and after a couple of listens you’ll be singing along to it, indeed there are times in this track where you can see how innovative Sodom were in the early years. The problem is that at times it is let down by the repetitiveness of the riffs, and it is probably a little longer than it should be, both of these are symptoms that come with bands older material. ‘Sin of Sodom’ is also a prime example of the questionable recording quality, which struggles to make the lone guitar sound powerful enough and makes the drums sound almost tentative.
The rest of the tracks bear similar qualities and negatives, ‘bloody corpse’ is the simplest chorus imaginable that is undoubtedly great live and ‘Ashes to Ashes’ has a great galloping drum beat. But again they are let down by the poor quality of the recording.
The original tracks from ‘In the Sign of Evil’ save this CD somewhat, they make the bonus tracks look as though they are filler as they are better quality recording and tend to be more technical and powerful than the ‘bonus tracks’.
The fact is that this CD is an EP, not an album, the reason the bonus tracks were not released at the time they were written is clear to me as they do not seem to be as good as the original EP songs. As such I would have to say that I would only recommend this CD to Sodom’s current die hard fanbase as I honestly believe that the majority of tracks on this CD will be lost on the newer thrash fan base who have such an expansive choice of thrash available to them at this moment in time.
I do salute Sodom for trying to highlight the roots of thrash to a new generation of fans, but I feel it will be a thankless exercise that will only really be appreciated by the fans that Sodom already have.
6/10
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