Customer Reviews

M-16

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Sodom is my favorite Thrash Metal band from Germany,
while the golden era of Thrash Metal is gone,
Many 80' Thrash bands change their style or disbanded,
But Sodom keep Thrashing till NOW!!!
That desevre my Respect!!!!!
Those Metallica Fans feel shame what Metallica doing now,
Sodom never stop thrashing just made their fans feel proud!!!

I got their first few album [which is classic, no doubt!!!]
I haven't heard anything after Agent Orange,
I think the reason for me to get this album is,
Lots of good review over the world and This year Kreator and Destruction all release killer thrash metal album,
It's sounds like Thrash Metal is back again!

The guitar sounds little bit harsh,
Tom Angelripper voice sounds as great as he did in Agent Orange and Persecution Mania,
and sounds more agressive and spittin' machine gun lyrics!!!

hard to pick a Best song,
All songs sounds killer,
but the most impressive song is the title song M-16!
A great mid-tempo song!
I think I can say it's give me a feel that,
it's sounds like in the vein of Remember The Falling!!!

The album got 4 Star,
plus one star is my respect to Sodom never stop thrashing!

A Killer Modern Thrash Metal album!

If u like Agent Orange and Better off Dead, you can buy this one and like it too. They have become a little repetitive but I'll still give it 4 stars just for keeping the 80's trash spirit alive.

While 'M-16' isn't completely pure, old-school thrash, it's about as close as you're likely to come nowadays. Fortunately, when it deviates from the thrash norm it largely does so effectively, making the album a bit more distinctive with out weakening it. This is not sophisticated stuff, just an unrelenting bludgeoning. But it works. Very, very well.

The guitar tone on this album is quite unusual for this sort of material. It's very, very thick and fuzzy, not too far from what you might here on a doom or sludge album. Surprisingly, this actually works pretty well. If you aren't listening very carefully it'll probably turn into a blur, but it's still sufficiently distinct to be made out very easily if you are actually listening to it. It's also got a sorta punkish speed metal feel at times, a la Motorhead, and it sometimes moves into slower, doomy atmospherics. Still, it's a thrash album at it's heart, with choppy, pounding riffs the vast majority of the time.(It's midpaced quite a bit of the time, but it never really turns into groove-thrash. Frankly, there's little evidence that Sodom has listened to anything made after 1990) The lead guitar isn't given much emphasis, and none of the solos have made all that big of an impression on me, but it doesn't really detract either. It's just kinda there. The drumming is simplistic, even for this sort of material, largely with basic fills and simple 1-2 beats. But, that's all you really need for this sorta material, so it works out fine. (Some fancier fills would be nice and all, but they aren't absolutely needed.) Tom Angelripper (who has the best metal pseudonym ever) sings in a fairly harsh rasp which isn't all that far from what you'd hear on a Kreator album. He's not much for melody, but the chorus are usually quite memorable, in their way.

There isn't all that much variety here, but most of the tracks are catchy enough that they don't blur together all that much, and it is consistently fun, headbangable material from beginning to end. This is far catchier than your average thrash album, which more than makes up for the relative lack of variety. `Among the Weirdcong' is the opener and the best track. It's thunderously heavy, with a great, groovy but still propulsive main riff and an instantly memorable, roaring chorus. A modern thrash classic, definitely. `Napalm in the Morning' is a bit more subdued. Still very heavy, but groovier with a sorta Motorheady feel to it. Another fun, catchy song. `Minejumper' picks things up a bit again, faster with more unrelenting, trem-picked riffs, and more simple but catchy vocal lines. The title track is a bit more dynamic, with some slower parts actually melody in the guitar lines at times, and a great, hypnotic chorus. (`Marines' has the same basic feel, though it's not quite as effective) It closes with the cover `Surfin' Bird' which is really quite amusing. Normally, I try and discuss more specific songs than this, but almost everything here is good in the same way. But, as I said before, it's catchy enough that this doesn't really detract.

Also, the cover art for this album is awesome. Awesome as hell. Very good, under appreciated stuff here.

I just recently discoverd this band ab until now ive gotta say WOW! this is pure metal great lyrics for this one ,this album is what metal should talk about and sound like great music and lyrics about war and death the tracks i espically liked is "Among The Weirdcong" "I AM The WAR" "genocide" you gotta hear this one if you like pure aggresion lyrics and great intense guitar riffs a must have

After over 20 years the only original member is Angelripper and looks like he keeps changing musicians for the better. This is a very good thrash CD. Unlike their older stuff that was OK and once in a while you'd notice little things that gave you a clue that they were not that good, this CD is excellent, everything is tight! If you are getting frustrated like me with some of the Nu metal, try some of the newer thrash like this one.

this is the best album from a great thrash metal band. i absolutly love this album. cant seem to stop listening to it. AWESOME!!!

I would expect nothing less from the one of the best thrash metal bands on the planet. Anyone who is a fan of thrash metal should have this album in their collection.

Though I have since experienced most of Sodom's catalogue, M-16 was my first taste of the German thrashers. It's title is fitting, both because the album is a concept effort about the Vietnam War and because it hosed me down much like an actual M-16 would. This disc is eleven tracks of lethal riffage topped off with premium thrash vocals.

"Among the Weirdcong" opens the album with force, utilizing an intriguing snare drum intro, a chugging verse riff, and an absolute buzzsaw of guitars underneath the harsh chorus vocals of Mr. Angelripper. Drawing second blood is "I Am the War," another speedy track with a catchy chorus. The third track, "Napalm in the Morning," leads off with the infamous "Apocalypse Now" sound clip before launching into a slower, more controlled approach that still contains a good deal of heaviness. "Minejumper" speeds things up again with a catchy main riff and some sickly-sounding chorus vocals while the next track, "Genocide," makes up for lack of speed with heaviness and brutal lyrics. Following "Genocide" is "Little Boy," one of the weakest tracks on the album, but it does contain a decent solo in the second half of the song before culminating in a Postmortem-eque machinegun-paced conclusion.

M-16 gets a little (and by a little I mean a lot) more intense with the title track, a monster of a song that combines power with lyrics that inspire destruction and also features one of the better solos on the album. "M-16" is supported perfectly by "Lead Injection," which is pretty self-explanatory if you look at the title. In its successor, "Cannon Fodder," we get another catchy chorus and a taste of speed, though for me this is another fairly standard track with little to get overly excited about. Not so for the next track. "Marines" is one of if not the best tracks on M-16. It opens with an insanely catchy riff backed by an oriental sounding stringed instrument and vocals that build from a near-whisper to classic Sodom severity. This one is sure to get you off your ass and breaking things by the chorus, which is the trademark of any killer metal track. Closing the album out is an awesome cover of "Surfin' Bird" which brings the listener abruptly out of kill mode and back to the States. Er, wherever it is you're listening to the album, anyway.

As with any concept album, I believe the only way to listen to M-16 is from start to finish. As a whole, it's a masterpiece. Each song offers something unique, and there's pretty decent disparity in track length, something I always appreciate. If you aren't a fan of concept albums, I still recommend this album because there's a solid number of tracks that can stand alone as well. Sodom did a great job with this record, and even though I still often wonder what exactly a "weirdcong" is while listening to M-16, it doesn't hinder my enjoyment of the album in any way.

Man, this album is just pure awesome, wow, this is some great modern sounding thrash metal, when thrash metal was not really that great back in 2001, but this was one saving grace, Sodom are veterans of the scene, and showed it here, making it modern, but still retaining that raw in your face style, which is usually what thrash metal is, everything works on this album, it has a great tone to it, I can pick nothing out in the production of it, I would not change it a bit, everything is crisp and heard well, especially the drums! and what a great drummer, catchy double bass fills all throughout, and Tom Angelrippers vocals? Wow, this old man can STILL sound mean as hell, and he sure does here, and let me speak to his bass playing, it is just fine, the guitars have a great sound as well, and are wrote very well, it's fast, and still catchy at the same time, and a lot of great melodies as well, if you're a fan of Sodom (you probably already have this) but if not, you MUST get this, or if you're a fan of thrash metal in general, this release should NOT be overlooked, it is a masterpiece, and a favorite amongst a lot of Sodom fans, do yourself a favor, pick this one up!

Let's get one thing clear first: I absolutely love 80s style thrash, and since in my heart, a mediocre album from a third tier semi obscure band, let's say, Assassin's Interstellar Experience, will always be better than any of today's top notch first quality metal albums, let's say, Lamb of God's Wrath or Mastodon's Crack the Skye, don't expect any objectivity whatsoever from this review.
So, what we have here is a first class German Thrash album, maybe a little cleaner, focused and less chaotic than Sodom's classic 80s albums like Obsessed by Cruelty and Persecution Mania, but equally pummeling nonetheless, maybe a little more rooted in the Agent Orange mould, that is, less speed and more groove. Lirically, the songs are all about the Vietnam War, or at least all those great movies about Vietnam that came in the wake of Apocalypse Now. References to this movies are splattered all over, from the sample in Napalm in the Morning to the Surfin' Bird cover. In short, what you get here is one of the 00s best traditional thrash albums, bar none. Even if you have just a passing interest in metal's headbangiest style, do yourself a favor and pick up this sadly overlooked gem.