Agent Orange [Import]

Sodom | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 12, 1999)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Steamhammer Europe
• ASIN: B0000073XZ
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #116,194 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Remember the fallen..., July 17, 2003

By 

Patrick Stott (Rolleston, Canterbury, New Zealand) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Agent Orange (Audio CD)

So why did you start listening to heavy metal? The rebellion factor? Iron Maiden's cool covers? Hearing Black Sabbath from someone older? Seeing Bros on telly in the late 1980s and thinking "This is awful"?

For me, it was the sheer childish pleasure of head banging, playing air guitar, and pretending to be Steve Harris. Metal looked and sounded like fun, so I tried it, and more than 15 years later, I'm still hooked. During that time, Sodom has given me a lot of pleasure (don't take that the wrong way!) and has caused me many a whiplashed neck from frenzied headbanging. Agent Orange is an album to slip on when no one is around, put away all breakable things in the room, pick up a tennis racket, and just let rip!

Sodom were never a band to let technicality to get in the way of a good song. Equal parts Venom and Motorhead, this is thrash metal at it's most basic, and most effective. Like those two legendary noisy three piece bands, the trio of musicians in Sodom may not be the best in their field, but working on Motorhead's "Sod it, it's only rock and roll" theory, produced some of the most ungodly thrash noise ever to make it to record. At one time, Sodom were one of the most extreme bands in the world, even being labelled "death metal" back in the mid 1980s!

It's hard to believe Sodom had slowed down for this album. Listen to songs like "Ausgebombt" booming out of your stereo and you'll hear a simple repetitive bass line, fairly basic piledriver drumming, catchy riffs, and Tom Angelripper's Teutonic shout over it all. It's not particularly tight in places, almost verging on falling apart during a few of the solos, but fuss is kept to a minimum. There are even punk rock shout-along choruses here. There's the odd solo thrown in, but you'll not find a self-indulgent fiddle-fest. Bands today who don't use solos should take note- you don't have to be Yngwie Malmsteen to play a good solo.

The title track, "Remember The Fallen" and Ausgebombt" are the pick of the bunch here, although that said, there are really no dud tracks on this album. When this was released in 1989, Sodom were moving away from the anti-Christian sentiments of earlier releases, having found a deeper vein of inspiration in railing against the stupidity of war. One track which is just a little disturbing however, is "Incest". Apparently Angelripper fancied his own sister...

"Agent Orange" has all the ingredients a good thrash album needs. Days later, the pounding songs will still be echoing in your subconscious, and you will be flicking Devil horns at everyone you meet. Remember the fallen!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Classic!, May 17, 2005

By 

iMetalG5 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Agent Orange (Audio CD)

This is an oldie but a goodie. Back in the day Sodom were it when it came to thrash. Lots of people considered their sound a cross between Slayer and (old) Metallica and yes that may be a good assumption but Agent Orange is definitly a classic thrash metal album. Perescution Mania IMHO is their best but Agent Orange comes in second. If you want to be educated in where thrash came from definitly pick this one up. I highly suggest you pick up Perescution Mania or better yet Mortal Way of Live which includes all the best Sodom songs played in a live setting in 1988. Trust me, when you listen to Mortal way of Live you can feel the energy they gave off. The only song that disturbs me is "Incest" Online there were rumors that Angelripper wanted his own sis. Yikes. Why sing about it!? Could just be a rumor back in the day.

Again, this is classic. I recommend three classic Sodom CDs which include this one, Perescution Mania, and Mortal way of Live.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Virtually perfect thrash album., May 29, 2006

By 

Bill Lee (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Agent Orange (Audio CD)

When I first started listening to metal, one of the bands that I was warned to stay away from was the German thrash trio Sodom. I was told that their music was too impossibly fast and extreme to be even mildly comprehensible. The first thing I did, of course, was listen to the first Sodom album I could find, which was 1989's "Agent Orange." In all fairness, I think the individual who warned me against Sodom was referring to the band's earlier works such as "In The Sign of Evil" and "Obsessed by Cruelty," since "Agent Orange" represents something of an aesthetic refinement of the German thrash movement that Sodom helped to create; the music is still fast enough to tear your face off, but the overall emphasis seems to have shifted from speed to fullness of sound as evidenced by a greater role for the bass and a reliance on powerchords in lieu of quickly jumping from one fret to another with insane tremolo picking (not to mention improved production values).

"Agent Orange" begins with the title track, which is one of Sodom's best songs as well as a thrash classic in its own right. In some superficial respects, it resembles the more commercialized style of mid-1980s speed metal (as exemplified by albums such as "Master of Puppets") with few of the same neoclassical pretensions of that era. The result is a simpler, more streamlined metal sound that is ironically less accessible than its American and British forebearers. The frentic thrash tempo only increases after the title track, moving into the panicked "Tired and Red" and the sexually inappropriate "Incest." The epic thrash ballad "Remember the Fallen" (also a classic track) slows things down a bit but the pace afterward is relentless with "Magic Dragon" and "Ausgebombt" being the highlights of the second half of the album. Tom Angelripper's gnarled voice is the perfect complement to the hellishly fast proceedings on "Agent Orange," riding above the music like a tactical bombing raid and more than slightly resembling Lemmy Kilmister of Motörhead. The theme of the Vietnam War introduced on "Agent Orange" would be revisited on Sodom's 2001 album "M-16," although "Agent Orange" is the superior album in just about every way. This is an essential thrash album that no metal fan ought to be without.