Sodom

Flag-waving lifers for Teutonic thrash, Sodom were crucial to the emergence of extreme metal in Europe. Formed in 1981 by bassist and growler Tim Angelripper (born Thomas Such), the Germans pioneered a savage attack with lightning-fast tempos and shredding inspired by Venom and Motörhead. Early Sodom releases—including 1987’s Persecution Mania, the first to feature the creepy mascot Knarrenheinz on the cover—revel in brutality and ugliness, and they became crucial studies for new converts to thrash as well as Scandinavia’s early black-metal acts. Agent Orange arrived in 1989 and found Angelripper, the outfit’s de facto leader, injecting the music with dark political satire inspired by the Vietnam War, a theme that would inform nearly every future Sodom release. In the mid-’90s, Angelripper thickened their onslaught with death-metal and groove-metal influences before steering them back toward a purer style of thrash on releases like the 2001 concept album M-16. Sodom are notorious for burning through personnel, but the unexpected return of late-’80s ripper Frank “Blackfire” Gosdzik in 2018 was key to creating 2020’s Genesis XIX, an album stuffed with the kind of ridiculously sick riffs for which Sodom are legendary.