Sodom: 40 Years At War – The Greatest Hell Of Sodom (2022, Steamhammer/SPV)

We live in a time of constant reinvention and, therefore, saturation of the market with works that are not as attractive as those of yesteryear due to lack of originality or for the simple fact of not ending up inventing anything new. The controversy is served by the announcement of the re-interpretation of certain works, for better or worse, but the truth is that a fixed course has been taken almost involuntarily in which everything and all of us end up going through the same thing, late or early. This seems to be, inevitably, the point of arrival.

An innumerable number of works have been reinvented throughout the history of humanity with greater or lesser success, some with more reason than others, but in the end what counts is not why but when it was done. In the case of Sodom we are not faced with a novelty per se. The band has been re-interpreting their own songs in the forty years they have been on the road, and no one has ever put their hands on their heads. To give an example: Outbreak Of Evil was first included on 1985’s In The Sign Of Evil, was re-recorded on 1987’s Expurse Of Sodomy giving it a clear, much thrasher sound than the original, and again became to go through the mixing board in 2007 with the original lineup

In effect, The Final Sign Of Evil is a complete version of In The Sign Of Evil in which, in addition to re-recording the songs that are part of the original release, the seven outtakes that the band had planned for the release of the one that was due were included. to have been their debut album that, for economic reasons, was reduced to a simple but legendary EP of five songs. However, The Final Sign Of Evil has enough ingredients to be considered an album as such with the amount of unreleased material it includes, so the point goes to Sodom.

The recent EPs that Sodom has released in the last three years have also served to treasure great versions of classic cuts like Agent Orange or Bombenhagel, which this time have been left out of play for more than obvious reasons. 40 Years At War – The Greatest Hell Of Sodom has managed to bring together a number of interesting songs that the Gelsenkirchen quartet led by the outstanding Tom Angelripper has managed to revisit with great success. To many it may seem like an unimportant release, and you could even say it’s unnecessary, but I can’t think of a better way to celebrate four decades of life in a different way.

The selection of songs can be somewhat questionable, I myself would have preferred the review of cuts like Proselytism Real, Peacemaker’s Law, Nuclear Winter or Little Boy, just to name a few, but I couldn’t be more satisfied with the work of the Germans when it comes to pick a cut from each of their studio releases to date. The band manages to compile seventeen interesting songs from their entire career with great success and gives them a fair but intense facelift, making cuts like the underrated City Of God or the reviled Jabba The Hutt look like they never have before. Obviously they are not going to change the minds of those who at the time shelved their career in 1994 with Get What You Deserve, but in this way I see it easy for some to reconnect with what they detested at the time in a more intimate and less violent.

After The Deluge is the song they have chosen to promote the album in the first instance, although I think Gathering Of Minds would have been a good track to offer a sample of what is to come. Plus we have the perfect combination: Baptism Of Fire, Better Off Dead and Body Parts at once. If your balls don’t fall to the ground after the Germans hit you with such a trio of aces, I would go pick up the beach bar. If Body Parts already seemed like a powerful song to me when I heard it for the first time, now it is perfection made into a song. Angelripper‘s voice has matured like fine wine and it is perhaps in these latest releases where it has looked best, leaving evidence of this in the excellent Genesis XIX from 2020, and in Body Parts it looks like never before

Perhaps the era that needed the least attention is that of Markus Makka Freiwald and Stefan Husky Hüskens, and personally I would have chosen Gisela from ‘Til Death Do Us Unite to give it the occasional twist. Code Red was already perfect as it was, which is why Book Burning doesn’t quite look as it should, the same as Genocide, although in City Of God everything works like a charm, just like in In War And Pieces. However, S.O.D.O.M. It is still a song that I have special affection for and that at the same time seems too easy for me to want to rescue something from the weak Epitome Of Torture from 2013, from which I would have chosen Stigmatized without hesitation.

The last part of the album is perhaps the most expendable of all. Caligula is a decent cut from an album that was not that interesting, which here seems to want to claim that this album was not so bad but except for the song in question or the decaffeinated version of Sacred Warpath, I wouldn’t have rescued anything else. And Euthanasia is a song that, having been recorded a couple of years ago, I would not have covered again, that’s my opinion.

40 Years At War – The Greatest Hell Of Sodom is, overall, a heartfelt tribute to a career of total dedication to their music and the band prove to be in better shape than they’ve ever been. Some cuts are surprising for their simplicity and others don’t quite shine, making the album itself somewhat heavy throughout its sixty-seven minutes. There are authentic anthems that could have gone on this album and many others that should have been discarded, but it is appreciated that a band of this caliber continues to maintain the level after four decades giving everything to and for metal.

It’s a real shame that 1982 has not been included on the album and is only part of the limited boxset. I think it’s a really cool tribute. There are also several additional versions that have not ended up entering and that remain in the boxset such as Equinox, Witching Metal, Victims Of Death and Let’s Fight In The Darkness Of Hell, a compelling reason to get that edition. Once again it’s time to congratulate Caesar: long live and prosper, Tom.