Sodom - Epitome Of Torture

The problem with releasing an album as perfect as "In War And Pieces" is that you have to follow it up effectively. In this instance, Sodom seem to have gone for a more back-to-basics approach which is understandable, but not the best move to make in their case. The performance and the production are all of top quality, there's no question there, but the songwriting has taken a horrendous turn for the worse and only tends to really get it's groove on during some solo sections ('Stigmatized' is a very notable one for this) which isn't how an album should operate - to put it simply, there're are absolutely no standout tracks to be found here. Riffs seem to be more simplistic merely for the sake of it, or shooting for the goal of being more 'thrash', but it just doesn't work very well. Sodom had grown out of that with their recent albums, they'd finally managed to perfect their writing style and their sound, and they've decided to take three giant leaps back whilst doing the jazz hands the whole way in a manner of mockery. There are still some good tracks to be found here, solos are plentiful and tasteful and Tom Angelripper sounds as nasty as ever, but the whole thing comes across as either half hearted or simply forced - like they're trying too hard to appeal to the thrash die-hards who, for the most part, were absolutely fine with the sound on the last two releases anyway. It does feel a little bit unfair to compare this to the previous release constantly, but when you release and album of such quality and then follow it up with something that is less than half the masterpiece of it's predecessor, what do you expect? It really cannot be helped. There's nothing present here that comes close to the likes of 'Styptic Parasite' or 'The Art of Killing Poetry' and it's all just kind of... depressing, when you think about it. It's all still energetic and put together in a satisfactory manner for the most part, but it just feels like such a devolution considering all that the band has put out over the past decade or so and I think most Sodom fans who DON'T have Angelripper's bratwurst down their throats would stand up and go "Hang on a bloody minute, what happened to all that neat shit you were doing three years ago?!". And I really don't blame them. There's none of the catchiness or memorable hooks anymore - imagine a more basicly structured and minimally composed "M16" with no hooks and that's essentially what you have here.

Once more, "Epitome Of Torture" isn't by any means a DREADFUL album. On paper, it ticks all the boxes that people would expect from a German thrash band and most thrash metal fans will manage to enjoy this with no problems, but those who have been a longtime fan of Sodom such as myself will probably struggle to comprehend the fact that they've just abandoned a majority of what made the band so good over the past decade. Maybe it'll grow on me in time, and if that's the case then I'll re-review the digipack version of the album, but I don't see myself listening to this anywhere near as much as the rest of their back catalogue. Again, it's not bad necessarily, but it does come across as a bit 'vanilla' by Sodom's standards. I expected so much better than this, to say I think that Sodom's "Epitome Of Torture" is a colossal disappointment would be an understatement. It isn't going out of the door without a recommendation, but it's also leaving with a dunce hat on it's head as I fling pies at it's face slapstick-style while it make it's exit for being inferior to the album that came before it. All the while screaming "Remember when you actually tried, Sodom? You're off the hook this time but pull this shit again and you're sleeping outside!" and bashing my head on my desk repeatedly. I really, really, REALLY wanted to like this album, and I do to an extent, but nowhere near as much as I want to. My advice is to check it out, but don't hold out for anything as awe-inspiring as the last three or four releases.