There are few metal bands that convey authenticity and reliability as well as German historic Thrash icons Sodom. Over the course of a forty-three-year career, the teenage creation of one Tom Angelripper has upheld the promise of its raw and uncompromising origins – to create an unrelenting Black/Thrash assault that doesn’t bow to trends.
On June 27, 2025, studio album number eighteen hits like a bunker-buster bomb. Released courtesy of Steamhammer / SPV, The Arsonist presents fans with yet another slab of breakneck, pit-inducing tunes determined to keep pace with much younger peers plying the same trade.
No one is surprised at this point that the welcoming back of Guitarist Frankie Blackfyre into the fold has invigorated what was already a supercharged powerhouse of a band. 2020’s Genesis XIX was as convincing a bombardment as its predecessors. Sodom is a band that goes about its business with the same controlled abandon that bands like Motörhead operated under; an exceedingly rare bit of musical magic that is supposed to get harder over time.
On The Arsonist, a single listen to barnburners like “The Spirits That I Called” and “Witchhunter” demonstrates who built this genre and who still plants their flag at the mean, dirty, and real old-school Thrash mountain. The former tune features a main riff similar to that of old The Haunted, with a headbanging chorus on a slightly slower time-change that is deeply related to Sodom. Powerful shredding leads and a pulsating bottom-end courtesy of Tom’s thick-as-tank-tread bass tone, and drummer Toni Merkel’s pounding of the kit, ensure this one will kick your ass. The latter tune, with its somewhat eponymous title harking back to deceased drummer Chris “Witchhunter,” infuses that Punk/Hardcore meets Kill’ Em All era Metallica feeling with gang-vocal shouts, and some well-placed bass guitar solo bars to paint that truly Discharge meets Proto-Thrash hammer-fist to the guts.
Nothing is being laid down that you don’t already love. That is the beauty of a new Sodom album. “Battle of Harvest Moon” hits like the Seasons era Slayer, with that unmistakable Sodom signature. Slowing down on the chorus for some gang shouts, before racing off again on the main riff – you will start circle pits in the train station, the park, the mall, wherever you happen to spin this banger. Exciting soloing brings to mind old Sepultura, and the production is that perfect mixture of old school and clarity that separates bands like Sodom from the hordes of squeaky-clean pseudo-Death and Thrash imitators clogging up the scene.
The Arsonist cannot be said to have any surprises up its sleeve. And hell, it’s Sodom. Why would you want any? Perhaps the biggest surprise is that a style of music with a forty-plus-year history can be made to sound as fresh and evil as it did in its youth, for yet another full-length’s worth of songs. Whether it is the sharp clinical riff-tastic machine gunning of “Gun Without Groom” or the mid-paced venue-destroyer “Scavenger,” Sodom could play this entire thing front to back on their next tour, and it would still wipe the floor with 90% of their contemporaries. Album closer “Return to God In Parts” will ensure you return from listening to the riff-storm in fragments of joy.
Putting it simply, this is what Thrash Metal should be, and always was. That is why Cryptic Rock gives The Arsonist 5 out of 5 stars.
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