Reviews list for Sodom - M-16 (2001)

There's this stereotype in my head of Sodom whose playing style is to fire off a bunch of dark songs machine gun-style. This worked well in the '80s and the early '90s, but then the rest of the '90s happened and unless you were playing to 5 people in Hungary, you stopped playing thrash. Sodom were not a band who could do anything but thrash well, and thus everyone pretends that the '90s never happened. M-16 is a return to form for all those people who missed Code Red.
Modern production does Sodom no favors, I've gotten a couple of headaches while listening to this album. It's not the worst such album, but the guy's voice along with the guitar tone and the driving sound of the drums does not make for a good mix. Which is funny, because the obvious comparison is to the soundtrack of Doom. It basically sounds like a hi-res version of those classic midis. A nice, dark sound that should be punctuated by the rhythmatic sound of a shotgun blasting away hundreds of pinkies.
So, the album lives or dies by the quality of the riffs. It's not terrible by any means, but it isn't exciting either. None of these songs are memorable, and if played in isolation, one would assume it was a nice imitator of Sodom rather than the real deal. Perhaps it is that nice in context bit that makes Sodom Sodom, and I just never noticed it until now.
I do find the choice to end the album on the incredibly annoying Bird is the Word annoying. Why a completely serious band would all of a sudden include a novelty song on one of their albums is beyond me.

Where to start with Sodom, eh? The grandfathers of Teutonic thrash metal as I view them today were still a little under twenty years into their existence at the point of them recording M-16. With a stable line-up in place for the past four years, the band were starting to look like they were hitting a solid run of form with ‘Til Death Do Us Unite and Code Red being improvements on the lacklustre Masquerade in Blood. The stage was well set then for them to continue this run with M-16.

With typically eye-catching artwork adorning the cover, the tracks soon follow this blistering war theme with the relentless pummeling of I Am the War in particular presenting a salvo of Angelripper spat bullets early on in proceedings. These faster paced thrashers such as Genocide are where the album really shines with these, the title track and Lead Injection being the better written of the tracks on offer.

At the same time though there are some goofy and clumsy moments as well. The incredibly corny Napalm in the Morning, the borderline irritating Little Boy and that fucking terrible Surfin' Bird cover are all examples of where a full near fifty-minutes of runtime was not necessarily needed. Even in the better tracks on the album, I would still say that for all the pace and frenzy there is not always the equal amount of punch to really elevate M16 to any real highlight in the band’s discography. This is most certainly not an album that will wrestle Agent Orange from the top spot in my all-time favourite Sodom records.

Whilst hinting at some of the better parts of the Sodom kitbag, this record comes off as being al little more than average in all honesty and it is not one that I have plans to be revisiting anytime soon. There are better records further along in the back-catalogue that you would get more from.

German thrash metal heavy-weights Sodom played a pretty major role in my formative years. I believe I first discovered them through the video clip for their 1989 single “Ausgebombt” which was shown on a late-night music video TV show & prompted me to pick up the “Agent Orange” album on cassette. I proceeded to play the absolute shit out of it which resulted in me exploring the rest of Sodom’s back catalogue fairly quickly afterwards. What I found was that there is a definite line that can be drawn between the more recent material that I really enjoyed (1987’s “Persecution Mania” sophomore album & “Expurse of Sodomy” E.P.) & Sodom’s rawer & more primitive earlier work (their two early demos, 1985’s “In The Sign of Evil” E.P. & 1986’s “Obsessed by Cruelty” debut album). I’ve never really gotten on with Sodom’s early works to be honest. As a musician myself, I feel that I’m too consistently distracted by the awful (or lack of) musicianship which makes the whole package feel like I’m listening to a bunch of twelve year-olds. But there can be no denying the quality of Sodom’s late 80’s classics & they really did secure my attention for each successive Sodom release until I’d drift away from the scene in the late 1990’s. Upon returning to metal in 2009 I would quickly discover that Sodom’s 2001 tenth full-length was being held up as a major resurrection of the band’s past glories with some claiming it as their best record overall. That idea had the teenage thrasher in me salivating so I went in head-first; ready, willing & able to be blown away. Needless to say that I was left a little disappointed by that experience. I recall finding “M-16” to be quite enjoyable but didn’t see it as anything terribly special so I haven’t returned to “M-16” since. I’ve often wondered if my expectations were simply too high which led me to be a little harsh on Sodom there though so this month’s feature release nomination has given me a good opportunity to review my position with more of an open mind.

Upon first listen, “M-16” is undeniably a Sodom record. The war themes they’ve so regularly targeted are all over the cover art, lyrics & general atmosphere while band leader Tom Angelripper is undeniable in his commitment to the cause. Tom’s backed by two former members of German power/heavy metal band Crows in guitarist Bernemann & drummer Bobby Schottkowski (currently with English NWOBHM stalwarts Tank), both of whom had been with the band since 1997’s “Til Death Do Us Unite” album, & the trio have produced a meat-&-potatoes style of thrash metal record that ticks most of the boxes that the band’s passionate fanbase look for in a Sodom release. The album is well produced & performed but I’m not sure that there’s anything especially noteworthy in the packaging which leaves the song-writing with the task of capturing the listener’s imagination. So, the big question is does it manage to do that? Well, I think the answer is yes & no for me personally but that’s clearly not the case for others.

You see, “M-16” is an inconsistent record in my opinion. There are certainly more hits than misses but the highlights never reach the heights of Sodom’s past glories. A lot of the album is enjoyable enough on the surface but is lacking in the edge that made the band famous to begin with. Guitarist Bernemann’s lead guitar contribution is a prime example in that there’s nothing wrong with his solos. They’re actually quite serviceable to be honest but none of them really stands out or adds to the songs so they tend to drift past without me even noticing them a lot of the time. Sodom have always been best when they drop the shackles & go for broke & that’s still the case here but those moments are not regular enough for “M-16” to be the classic record it’s hyped up to be. A lot of people seem to love Sodom’s slower war anthems but they can often sound a bit clunky to me. Take the very popular “Napalm In The Morning” for example. It’s basically built around a riff that’s essentially a minor variation on one that Bathory came up with in the late 1980’s & that’s about all there is to say about it really. It’s overly simple & lacks sophistication, instead relying on the lyrical themes & the link to “Apocalypse Now” to capture the listener’s interest. Admittedly it seems to have achieved that task too but I need a bit more in my thrash metal than that. Other tracks fair a little worse than that too with the chorus hooks from both “Little Boy” & “Marines” coming across as particularly dumb. And then we have the closing surf rock cover song “Surfin’ Bird”… what the fuck were they thinking with that one then, eh?

Look, I’m certainly sounding a little more critical than I would like to here because the song structures are noticeably more tight & cohesive than they were during the band's 1980's hey day & the tracklisting still has plenty to offer your average Kreator, Slayer & Destruction nut. “Genocide” & “Lead Injection” are both prime examples of that while you’ll find four or five others that are more than serviceable examples of the Sodom formula too. I guess it just frustrates me that a record like “M-16” can be placed up on such a pedestal. While I certainly enjoy it a lot more than Sodom’s 1982-1986 releases, I can’t say that it ever comes close to touching those 1987-1989 classics. In fact, I’d suggest that if this was the debut album from a brand new band then you’d likely never hear about it & the band in question would quickly drift off into the vast canyon of acts that didn't manage to differentiate themselves from the pack. It’s nothing more than a reasonably enjoyable (if inessential) Sodom record & I struggle to see why it’s regarded more highly than some of their other releases. I can only assume it’s for similar reasons to why some of the later Kreator & Exodus records were overrated i.e. they saw the bands returning to a reasonable level of form after a creative slump & were subsequently overhyped as a result.