Theory

[icycalm]

http://metalkings.com/sodom/sodom.htm

MetalKings.com: Well let's talk over the new album. As far as I got from the press release this album deals with Vietnam War?

Tom Angelripper: In the press aim it seems to be a Vietnam concept album. But you are quite right. We used a little bit of stuff from the Vietnam ‘cause everybody knows the Vietnam War movies and if you see an M-16 rifle, you always think about Vietnam. However, if you read the lyrics you will find out that it’s not especially Vietnam. I was going to write about my life in a lyrical way with historical facts, you know. The message is that if you read between the lines, the message is to stop the war. This is an anti-war album. Vietnam war I think was one of the bloodiest. It was so absurd because Americans love the war. Now the situation is – we are bringing the new album next week and a lot of people will say, “Oh, come on. Why are you bringing it out now when the war is going to restart?” That’s the thing, all the time at any place in the world there is a war going on, for example, when we wrote “Better Off Dead” the material there was about Gulf Crisis, when we wrote “Code Red” there was the Kosovo crisis. There is a war conflict at any time and any place – and my opinion is also in the lyrics. What would shock people a little bit – is the front cover design. But the people have to realize that we don’t want to have war, if there’s no more war it is good, I will have to write about other themes like peace or love.

This is a death metal band.

The dude's name is "Tom Angelripper".

[icycalm]

although a lot of people say “he is a fascist” and “we don’t wanna make interview with him”. They are not right! I’m not a fascist. I’m just German, you know,

[icycalm]

MetalKings.com: Yeah, every band that wrote about war was always accused of fascism, nazism and whatever. I think it just goes with writing about war.

Tom Angelripper: Yeah, but these people are not right, you know.

MetalKings.com: They are not right.

Tom Angelripper: Why are we writing about war? Because we don’t want war. We wanna describe how bad the war is.

I could quote this dude all day.

[icycalm]

Typical song names: “Masquerade in Blood”, “Get what you Deserve”, “Napalm in the Morning”, etc.

The guys look like this:

[Profanatica]

I don't think that Sodom ever fit into the genre of death metal; they were always more of a speed metal band and like most speed metal bands espoused, at least superficially, leftist political views that war and capitalism are evils. Metal musicians, regardless of the quality of their music, tend to say dumb things in interviews and show the worthlessness or even nonexistence of their ideologies. It's no surprise that the frontman for this rather average band is not the most intelligent guy in the world.

You are right in suggesting there is something ludicrous in this aggressive metal band utilizing warlike language and sounds while claiming that they aim for their music to expose the horror and undesirability of war. For most listeners, the confrontational and warlike aspects of metal are what drive people to listen to it. This is one of the reasons death and black metal tend to be more interesting than earlier speed metal bands – they reject shallow political “meanings” and just aim to create music that is warlike and unapologetically embraces evil, whereas speed metal bands usually whine about the cruelty of the world while playing music that is brutish and violent. That's pretty fucking backwards.

In Sodom's case, I can see two possible reasons for this absurdity. The first: Sodom and our friend Angelripper are actually enthralled by war and find its imagery stirring, but refrain from stating this out of cowardice. Or, more likely, they denigrate war out of stupidity and weakness while unconsciously finding the topic exhilarating.