Band:	Sodom
Album:	Epitome Of Torture
Style:	Teutonic thrash metal
Release date:	April 2013

01. My Final Bullet
02. S.O.D.O.M.
03. Epitome Of Torture
04. Stigmatized
05. Cannibal
06. Shoot Today - Kill Tomorrow
07. Invocating The Demons
08. Katjuscha
09. Into The Skies Of War
10. Tracing The Victim
11. Waterboarding [limited edition bonus]
12. Splitting The Atom [limited edition bonus]

If anything, Epitome of Torture is a passable album?it isn't great, isn't novel, won't be too memorable, but it's alright. These guys, like their fellow geriatric Germans in Destruction, have been able to tread water well over the years. Despite a few iffy albums here and there (per usual, in the 90s especially), when they see some life raft of some doomed-to-sink trend, they won't jump on, they just keep kicking among the sharks.

Sharks, dude. Life rafts. Metalphores.

That's not to say that everything they do is soulful?just because they seem to have a good measure of integrity doesn't yield poignancy automatically to their tunes. Epitome of Torture never explodes like their older albums. It sizzles occasionally, making the thrash version of that whistle and pop of a hotdog in a microwave instead of the napalm and poisonous blasts you got on, say, Agent Orange. Nothing against microwaved hotdogs or anything, but this album just doesn't capture the gusto and brazenness of heartfelt thrash.

Sodom seems to have expended as little energy as possible on this. I mean, I get that they're old as fuckable fuck and might not "feel it" as much as they used to, and that's totally understandable, but In War and Pieces came out just three years ago, and they shredded it up on that album. They're probably still capable of making music a lot better than this--this anodyne, going-through-the-motions collection of over-produced nostalgia.

But the album isn't terrible. It's fully listenable, but that isn't saying much when applied to the band that made Persecution Mania, Agent Orange, Sodom, Better Off Dead and M16.