I checked out a few tracks from the new Sodom album, The Final Sign of Evil which features re-recordings of early songs including all of In the Sign of Evil and a bunch of previously unreleased songs.

So far, its not too bad, not as bad as I thought - the production quality actually sounds more raw and dirty which is how the production should be for these old songs. Tom Angelripper sings in pretty much the same raspy growl he used in the old days too which sounds cool. And the playing sounds more loose and sloppy which in this case is a good thing.
As far as the unreleased songs - well, they're alright but I can kinda see why they didn't make it to an album, they lack a bit of the intensity of the In the Sign of Evil songs.

Anyone else heard this yet? What did you think?

http://www.maelstrom.nu/ezine/review_iss57_4270.php

SODOM - The Final Sign of Evil - CD - SPV - 2007

review by: Roberto Martinelli

The new Sodom sucks.

The new Sodom rules.

And what sucks and what rules about it are the very same elements.

The irony: My roommate and I were discussing how modern thrash bands should get a clue about what made thrash so appealing in the first place, and go out and record an album with a budget of $2,000 (or less) in order to re-create that raw and aggressive sound that people who like thrash would probably be really into. And a day or two after this discourse, the new Sodom shows up. Coincidence? We think not. It’s providence from the gods of metal. But the gods are spiteful deities.

The Final Sign of Evil is a back-to-roots album with an appropriate lineup: both Grave Violator (guitar) and Witchhunter (drums) — from the "classic," mid-‘80s In the Sign of Evil / Obsessed by Cruelty recordings — return to join Sodom main man Tom Angelripper in revisiting the songs from that infamous album, as well as some unreleased songs that were written during the same era but never recorded.

Witchhunter’s return to the Sodom recording line-up in itself is fucking amazing. Please note that this and all other statements about Sodom in a historical context are just about entirely due to our viewing the quintessential documentary on the band, Lords of Depravity, which was just about the best goddamn metal release of 2006. Seeing the sorry state of present-day Witchhunter, and the goofy, kind-of gay persona of Grave Violator (in front of his personal CD collection, with "key" albums like Venom’s Black Metal turned out so everyone can know that Grave Violator knows that it’s, like, a really important album) and imagining them back in action in the studio with Sodom is, well, kind of like the metal equivalent of a housewife waiting in line at Safeway and discovering that Jen Aniston has gotten back together with Brad Pitt.

Remember the duality of this album’s worth, though. It runs along with all aspects of the music. See, In the Sign of Evil is a fucking terrible, terrible record. I can’t sit through that shit. It’s sloppy, the riffs are bad... not that you could tell with such deplorable sound and execution, with the only real charm coming from the raw, dirty, black metal-esque vibe. For me, Sodom was utterly unlistenable until they released Persecution Mania. Please start there.

Listening to The Final Sign of Evil makes it painfully obvious that Grave Violator obviously hasn’t gotten any better in the 20+ years since he last recorded with Sodom. What’s more alarming is that Witchhunter seems to have gotten much worse. This is the same guy that made killer, kickass albums like Agent Orange and Tapping the Vein, but now it’s plain for all the world to see that he can’t hold a double bass tempo steady anymore. Watch the Sodom documentary and it won’t seem like such a surprise to you, either.

The musicianship on this album is nothing short of hilarious. The songs are very simple and simple-minded, but as a band, Sodom can’t even pull that off. The fills are totally retarded, the band has no idea where they’re at as far as tempo goes — even during the same riff — and the solos are a joke. I guess the bass playing is ok — I mean, it’s got to be... Angelripper has been making tight records since, well, In the Sign of Evil — but you can’t really tell because it’s all an un-fixable mess. I wonder what the fly on the wall at the recording studio saw. Was Angelripper having a good ol’ nostalgic time, or was he pulling his hair out not to be recording with the infinitely more talented lineup of Bobby and Bernemann?

Time to flip the duality coin again. The fact that The Final Sign of Evil sounds like the raw, fucked piece of crap that the original In the Sign of Evil does, AND with the same line-up is genius. Jesus Christ, Sodom’s been getting great production work by highly decorated Harris Johns for ages, but the reunion album was mixed by... the band’s webmaster... Toto?!?! If that’s not a commitment to shitcellence, then I don’t know what is. Probably the only thing that could top it is if came out that Angelripper obligated the group to record in their original concrete practice space using guitar strings that actually had been used back in the day.

What’s glorious about this all is that Angelripper gets it. He gets where Sodom came from and what initially made them a success, and he embraces it. Meanwhile, on the other side of the fence, is Destruction, which could really use a revision in what the fuck actually made them so hilarious / awesome / loveable in the first place, and cut it out with the plastic-fantastic production and go back to doing the trademark atrocious / godly vocals and cut the generic act out.

What sucks about this all is that The Final Sign of Evil is a terrible album as far as music goes. So while its very existence as an album is something for metal fans the world over to celebrate, it is really only a record that those with a historical frame of reference can appreciate, and even then, don’t stop reminding yourself that it’s classic Sodom again, or else the painful truth about this album’s quality will make you reach for the stop button right quick. That’s the final hilarity of the album: The Final Sign of Evil is an album not actually meant to listen to, but whose existence to appreciate. Angelripper and co could have just taken some reunion photos, but they did you all one better and actually recorded an album... the worst album that you’ll be pumped about. (Sucks/rules/10)

PS: Be thankful that within Angelripper’s getting it, he also gets that the "classic" Sodom lineup is a sorry, sorry affair, and that Sodom — the proper band — has the same professional lineup that has released the last four or five albums, and will continue to tour and record as such. That Angelripper, what a guy.

Sodom is one of few older bands that would spend the time and money doing this. I highly doubt they'll profit from the release much, but they did this for the fans and for themselves. I think the album is great, and the production is very fitting.

Yeah it was such a breath of fresh air when I listened to it and found that the production was more primitive sounding instead of all clear and shiny and clean. This release is definitely growing on me; one of the few metal releases in recent years that hasn't disappointed me completely.

blah, for a sodom release, there aren't any gems on it. I've been listening to the live CD non-stop since spv put it out and I was expecting more "hits" off this disc.