Slim pickins for underground metal, not that you expect much more 'cos that's why it's underground. 11/06/2020. "Blasphemer" breaks out a broken thrash melody before the drums charge forward, and I've always found it curious how similar the primary guitar rhythm in the verse feels to Slayer's "Chemical Warfare". The guitars have a thick tone and are pretty far back in the mix, and all of the riffs are tremolo riffs. Grave Violater, winner of the local "Youth Researches" competition, has found out how to draw the most scrubbing tones from his guitar while running up and down the scales and Witchhunter is obviously possessed by inner demons. After 18 seconds it's a full Venom clone. ”It’s time to die, Thus, the crude cocktail of black and thrash metal was not a disrespectful persiflage, it was the sound of the imaginary underground metal street. and the rawest examples of 90s’ Scandinavian-derived black metal (Mayhem, Burzum, Darkthrone and similar names, usually excluding the most “symphonic” edge of bands such as Emperor, Cradle of Filth, Dimmu Borgir or Limbonic Art). It’s like listening to Venom on speed. There are also some clear hardcore punk influences, audible on the pre-chorus and the chorus, but these riffs sound surely more evil than anything ever created by Anti-Nowhere League, The Exploited, Discharge, Poison Idea or Charged G.B.H.. Tom’s vocals bring right in your ears some historical words of Sodom’s discography: ”Black metal is the game I play, Lesen Sie Rezensionen und informieren Sie sich über beteiligte Personen. On a side note I have one small complaint with the version I own released by Steamhammer/SPV records. In addition, the drummer attempts to do some double bass drumming, which makes the drumming even sloppier. This approach was adopted on just about every major Darkthrone release, particularly their lesser acclaimed epic and progressive death/thrash debut “Soulside Journey”. And there are definitely more parts that convey this mixture, inter alia the hellish - and pretty weird - intro. The album kicks off with a very short atmospheric intro that leads into the first song Outbreak of Evil. Pure headbanging. The first four songs had very Venom type lyrics to "prove how evil we are" whereas this last track touches upon war/combat, a subject the band would focus on later in their career. and then… a miracle occurs, god forbid! None of those were better musicians, but they somehow got luckier in intriguing the respective recording companies a bit earlier. Department. In the beginning, there was Venom. It really gets annoying when you rip or play this CD to your computer as it mislabels all the tracks and leaves the final three tracks with "unknown" titles. No doubt, your intuition is on the money, and there's no better word to describe this affair than plain barbaric. Obviously, it’s probably an illusion. The gods that put out Slayer's records, Metal Blade, put this out as well. These two parts continue to alternate each other cyclically, with Tom declaiming some satanic sermons over the slowest parts. The drum-sound is pretty “over-the-top”, while the guitars sound very, very muffled and confused, at the point that sometimes you can’t even distinguish the palm-muted riffing, and you have the doubt that they were being played in a punkier way, rather than the common thrashy style of the band. Primeval speed, aggression and the quirky, drum-laden chorus dispel all other thoughts in your head. They are puked rasps, through which a voice occassionally cracks through. Of course, aesthetes will hate this work, but despite the very raw overall impression, the songs are not overly primitive. So, well, they are not only my favourite thrash metal band (with “Persecution Mania” and “Agent Orange”), but, thanks to their earliest releases, they’re also the peak of that kind of extreme metal I described in the first paragraph. One of these was Germany’s Sodom, who stepped up to the plate with their spiked bat ready to take on all comers. Great! Not to be confused with the power metal band Sodom from Munich. Discover more music, concerts, videos, and pictures with the largest catalogue online at Last.fm. The vocal delivery was also likely a pretty heavy influence on both Dead and Varg, as Angelripper manages to utter some pretty twisted stuff in a really garbled tone. Fiendish mirth arises from silence. My particular favourite has to be Burst Command Til War, for some backwards reason. Here instead of Sodoms' awesome german Death Thrash, we have a sloppier, more evil, black metal styled sound. The classic era, when the bands sound was more proto-black metal and Sodom released its undisputed classics Persecution Mania and Agent Orange. in other words, the awkwardness of the formation built a bridge to the then juvenile listeners; they could perfectly identify with the "artists". This and "Obsessed By Cruelty" is what got me into Sodom. 2007 The Final Sign of Evil. The beginning to this song actually reminds me a little of Norwegian Black Metal and I can see easily how Mayhem had some influences from this. If they tell their parents they want money in order to become the rowdiest metalheads in town, they’ll be grounded for weeks, maybe even months, in the best-case scenario… it’s so sad, this situation, cause the youngsters know that even in their current, barely amateurish status they can still make an impact. A note must be made about the lyrics. This however is black metal like bands from the 'first wave of black metal' which included acts such as Venom and Mercyful Fate. All the instrumentation is incredibly basic, just a few chords per riff (or song, usually) and roughly zero technical skill between the three of them. You're just hoping something slipped in there that's going to rip the carpet off the floor when you put it on. More controlled bash comes pouring out of “Witching Metal”, the obligatory nod to the pioneers Venom without whom this whole enterprise wouldn’t have existed; before “Burst Command til War” wraps it on with headbanging vigour to spare, a one-dimensional but inspired hammering that nicely gets the message through, “We’re here, finally, and we mean business! Everything is raw and simple, but it’s all perfectly audible, the muddy bubbling of the bass just below Grave Violator’s fast, hooky guitars, while Witch Hunter’s drums provide the shambling skeletal backbone. In the Sign of Evil is a fun, street-stomping 20 minute war machine of churning malevolence and take-no-shit punk attitude, and it’s not only a highly influential album for its time period, but an infectious journey worth repeating even today, for established thrash barons and headbanging neophytes alike. Very evil sounding and kick ass. An original middle 1980s black metal/thrash crossover that quickly became highly refined speed/black metal with albums such as "Agent Orange" and "Persecution Mania. This is pretty much what you would expect from an underground thrash metal band that's just starting out. Tom Angelripper's vocals are the blueprint for what many black metal bands would copy, and Witchhunter's drums, while sloppy, are full of energy and honesty. Well, first of all... what you need to know is that, substantially, “In the Sign of Evil” consists just in five tracks of pure, raw, primordial, fucking thrash metal. It begins with a pretty creepy chugging intro (accompanied by some evil phrasings and some horrifying laughters); then, another fast riff comes in. There also seems to be some elements of Slayer as well. Leafing through the record rack, you zip past the first Stryper lp and chuckle 'cuz you think of that kid in school who's totally into this band, totally religious, and totally gay. As much as this follows the skeletal precepts of Venom and Motorhead, with its straightforward, kick-to-the-crotch rocking, it also borrows a bit of the aggressive riffing nature from Slayer to become a bit more distinct. Blind Superstition (01:02) Changelog for update 0.25. We all know the most important bands of the influence in Black Metal thought. The bass is present, and because of the lack of a rhythm guitar it is more or less its own instrument and does playing different from the guitars. Listening to thrash landmarks like “Persecution Mania” and “Agent Orange”, the fan can’t help but fondly remember the band’s early days, when the chances for this semi-amateurish team to become more than redundant noise-mongers were very minimal… so this Manfred Schütz guy was right; the guys did sell a lot of records, and probably quite a few from the EP here as well… after all, it never hurts to check how bare-chested enthusiasm can make you heard, over the hills and far away, and probably inspire you to try and match the latter with at least a dignified sniff of musical dexterity. Discography: Obsessed by Cruelty, Persecution Mania, Agent Orange, Better Off Dead, Tapping the Vein.. First off the starting blocks were Sodom. Even Quorthon didn't know what he was creating - this is not a difficult concept to grasp, people) with not a sign of prose in the bunch. “In the Sign of Evil” and “Obsessed by Cruelty” are the greatest examples of how to create raw, dark and hellish atmospheres, being just sloppy and poorly skilled musicians, but with a lot of passion and an insane musical concept in mind. While wholeheartedly wicked, the lyrics (when decipherable) are truly laughable, consisting of classic lines like “masturbate to kill myself!” But generally speaking, the campy lyrics aren’t even noticeable because they aren’t printed in the booklet, and the listener will be too busy thrashing around incoherently screaming “AARGGHHHH!” “WAARRRRRRAGH!” etc. First of all I should prove my knowledge on the group Venom and how I can validate comparing Sodom to them. spit at the church, evil I get... This is a great little EP for those that think Hellhammer died too fast and Deathstrike had a great thing going, had they managed to get it going. This is the most Venom sounding song on the EP. Sodom - Obsessed By Cruelty (Metal Blade, 1986) To some extent, the 80s was about discovering the black within metal and like many of the entries on this list, one could interpret a lot of early Sodom as simply evil-sounding thrash. You got it. They are full of energy, so the drums are decent. Each one of these five evil numbers brings something unique to the table, though they all share in common a very morbid atmosphere. Some phrasings sound a bit sloppy, but the evil vibe isn’t damaged. However, the amateurish production manages to increase the raw, alien and enigmatic vibe of the record, working surely much better than most of those clean bombastic productions that we often find nowadays on albums that have just nothing to say. Originally submitted to (www.metal-observer.com) on September 3, 2008. The first thing I noticed about this EP was that it was as close to black metal (somewhere between 1st and 2nd wave) as it was to thrash. This is not so much about impressing the listener with the music, but showing just how far metal was capable of going in 1984, and though its speed would be surpassed, it remains a landmark in Germany's speed/thrash history (not to mention black metal on the world stage), and still sounds pretty good by today's standards, when compared to all the retro underground acts who trip over themselves to achieve the same archaic appeal. Between proto-black metal bands and raw “occult” stuff in general, early Sodom is my absolute favourite name. “Outbreak Of Evil” is the most thrash oriented and has a fairly constant flow to it, save the free time intro that sounds like an eviler version of the one at the beginning of Metallica’s “Hit The Lights”. My opinion is that Sodom during their career, passed through different kinds of thrash metal. Anyway this EP was very important for the growing black metal scene. At this early stage (now you can actually hear the songs - see the Witching Metal demo...) that sound was a Blackened Thrash one, god knows how long before people decided to put a label on what happens when two sub-genres that exist so naturally together get fused into a natural but nasty mass. Though they don't push any boundaries for the genre in terms of musicianship, and were arguably at least being equalled at the time in extremity (certainly surpassed now), the idea is the same then as it is now - the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. What can be said for the beginning to “Outbreak Of Evil”?? The song ends with some weird sound effects before a short outro stars up with the sound of an exploding nuclear bomb. The cover art is also incredibly iconic, even if it’s not all that artistic. Sure thing but the dice… sorry, guys were too late to show up with an official release; by the time the EP reviewed here appeared, the world had already seen one side of the Apocalypse when raided by the dark cavernous, twisted atrocities of a Swiss gang called Hellhammer; and the Scandinavian ice caps in the north were already half-melted under the black mark of someone Thomas Börje Forsberg aka Quorthon (R.I.P.)