Blackened Thrash Metal - "Persecution Mania" Review (81%)
If your band is named Sodom, you better be prepared to sound as painful and tight as humanly possible. Luckily, such is the case for Sodom's magnum opus Persecution Mania. Now laugh at the joke.
Persecution Mania is certainly the first album by the Germans that could be called anything like tight, but painful has been the remit of these guys since the band's inception. Switching track from the extreme metal buffet displayed on the very influential if overrated Obsessed by Cruelty, Sodom practically nailed the thrash thing at their first attempt, making a nasty, gritty album that provides everything from black metal's raw atmosphere, to death metal's morbid excitement, and some great musical blasphemy too.
While totaling just 35 minutes, everything has its place on the album and there's not much that wastes time here - unlike what would happen on their following disaster, the mediocre, boring and commercial Agent Orange.
Most of the songs rip into high gear right from the get-go and only slowly settle down for monstrous mid-paced relentless riffs, or that moment of eerie desolation in 'Nuclear Winter' that makes you truly live, and understand, its title.
The only hints of speed metal's commonly flawed excesses might be the intro of 'Procession to Golgotha', fantastically moody despite everything else, and the lengthier 'Christ Passion' with its goofy or genius grooves, depending how much you like that funk inspired beat. Fat Larry's Band and shit.
Yeah, Persecution Mania is definitively the epitome of true blackened thrash metal, before poser band Kreator would go around playing nu metal like Papa Roach, and even literally deathcore on their latest abortion Gods of Violence. How pathetic, thank God (Satan) that there is Sodom to release good music from time to time.
Remember, also, that this is the album that most influenced Fenriz and Nocturno Culto from Darkthrone, out of all the German proto-black metal bands (basically Sodom and Destruction).
Blackened Thrash Metal
What you should be looking for here is lots of brutal, violent, and intimidating riffs. Forget the 'grooves' and let those shitty mallcore bands try to ape Pantera and Lemmy. All that's needed to make blackened thrash metal, as Sodom shows you beyond doubt on this masterpiece, is the riff and knowledge of how to construct a song.
That dark almost death metal atmosphere - listen to the title track VERY carefully - and some super-heavy bass work. This is what you call blackened thrash, not what those modern bands do!
It's well-acknowledged that 'Nuclear Winter' is a classic song and while I wouldn't disagree for a moment, I must draw your attention to the rest of the music.
'Electrocution' will show you the way of the world, if you let its brutal riffs speak and you listen to the music contained within the music. This isn't some easy listening 'flowery' black metal, this is Sodom.
The darkness of 'Persecution Mania' is also a highlight and the track 'Christ Passion' shows you, after a long ass intro, what is without a doubt the best lead work coming out of Germany at the time - today we have Warkvlt and Nargaroth. Lol, I mean just Warkvlt.
'Bombenhagel' is distinctive in a somewhat different way, using simpler riffs in a techno/funk style Angelripper is almost sure to have listened to (maybe influenced Darkthrone's Ravishing Grimness?), in order to build a motif that will then worm its way inside your head.
Persecution Mania is without a doubt, blackened thrash's very best.
Also, Sodom's very best.
Also, heavy metal's very best. Deal with it.
Persecution Mania score: 81/100.
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