Sodom - In The Sign Of Evil

\r\nAfter their last year’s astonishing self titled album, Sodom decided to return to the lime light with an unforeseen release by re-recording the band’s 1984’s EP “In The Sign Of Evil” with the well known classic 5 songs that were originally in the EP plus seven previously unreleased tracks that according to the band were supposed to complete a full length album at the time but due to the company’s mistrust they never made it to the debut release. The other surprising thing on this album is the fact that it is recorded with the notorious classic line up since Tom is reunited with his old-time bandmates Grave Violator and Witchhunter! The first thing that comes in your mind then is that you should put this disc on your cd player as quickly as possible!!!Unreleased tracks of Sodom written back in 1984? Well, that could make my day! The album starts with the first of these unseen thus far tracks “The Sin Of Sodom” and my raging excitement is not disappointed for starters. Raw and evil with an astonishing Sodom-like riff appearing in the chorus that reminded me once more why this band has written its name with golden letters in the thrash metal history. The album continues with a classic one, the superb, shivering, blasphemous and untouchable "Blasphemer". Well, I don’t want to write mush about the old songs here cause there are not very much that I could say about those historical, legendary, and mighty songs other than that they do have some slight differences from the original versions. But let’s move on to the new tracks which will be and the selling points of this album for most of you. Well, after the first hearing my first impression kinda of turned upside down. The second new track “Bloody Corpse” is also a really nice thrashy achievement but as the album rolls down I start to have this strong feeling that maybe some of these unreleased tracks aren’t so old after all. Compared to the classic five set they aren’t not even close as unique as the originals from any point of view. They just don’t have the same evil atmosphere, the same creepy feeling nor the band’s aggressiveness of youth that defined Sodom’s debut. There are simply songs that Sodom could have written at any point of their later career, there are even some latest Slayer touches ("Where Angels Die"). Of course the production done by the band’s webmaster is trying to achieve their lost gone Venom-esque black metal vibe and sounds primitive and raw and that was a good choice because any other modern approach would definitely destroy the effort and make the songs sound rather ridiculous. Angelripper’s vocals are raspy and even guttural at times while Grave Violator and Witchhunter deliver a very basic and primitive sound but with lots of timing errors. Overall, if you don’t have the original EP, well I still prefer the original, buy this album or if you do have it those new tracks aren’t bad at all, simply they are not classic ones. Although, I can’t help but thinking that maybe my opinion would have been totally different if they were released back in 1984.\r\n