German thrash metal veterans SODOM will be rejoined by former guitarists Josef "Grave Violator" Dominik (who was in the band 1984-1985), Frank "Blackfire" Gosdzik (1986-1989) and Andy Brings (1991-1995) during their 35th-anniversary show on December 26 at Zeche in Bochum, Germany. SODOM's current lineup includes bassist/vocalist and sole remaining original member Thomas "Angelripper" Such, along with guitarist Bernd "Bernemann" Kost and drummer Markus "Makka" Freiwald. SODOM's latest album, "Decision Day", was released in August 2016 via SPV/Steamhammer. The disc was produced by Cornelius "Corny" Rambadt, sound engineer and drummer with Angelripper's side project ONKEL TOM. The effort featured artwork courtesy of Joe Petagno. As well as having worked for PINK FLOYD and LED ZEPPELIN, Petagno is MOTÖRHEAD's favored graphic designer and has created legendary album covers such as "Overkill", "Orgasmatron" and "Another Perfect Day". In a 2016 interview with Distorted Sound, Such stated about the making of "Decision Day": "When we start writing new songs, we never think about what we've got to do or we never have any direction in doing an old-school album. "SODOM is a band who will never change, really, even if you look back to the '90s when a lot of bands tried to get more commercial and change the music, but we never [did]. "I think back in the '90s as SODOM we had some of the heaviest albums of our career, and when we're writing songs now, we don't think about what we've got to do. We just rehearse. It's very old school — we have a rehearsal room and we do it one time a week and we just start it with a jam session, of course, drinking a beer and start a guitar riff or a drum fills. "I know other bands who are going to write songs on MP3 trading — one guy is living in America, one guy is living in England, the other one in Germany — and that is not a band. SODOM is a band. "We never look back because there are some people who say it sounds like 'Agent Orange' or 'Persecution Mania'. There was one guy who told me it sounds like 'Obsessed By Cruelty'. I never mind, but we just don't think about that — we just want to write good songs and a good album, but always try to keep the spirit of SODOM. We never want to try and change anything. We're gonna do thrash metal. There is no label or record company who will dictate to us off doing that. "I want to be free, I want to do this kind of music, but we love this kind of music. "All of the inspiration, for me, is the older bands like VENOM, MOTӦRHEAD, the old MOTӦRHEAD, but when we start writing songs we don't think about writing a song like MOTӦRHEAD or whatever, we just keep it a SODOM song. "The difference between the new one and the older releases like 'Epitome Of Torture' and 'In War And Pieces', the way we produced this album, we never had a release date with our label; we just recorded the songs and we had a lot of time. We recorded in six months and it was very relaxed working and the studio was near my hometown so I could go there doing some vocal work, some bass lines and going back home and relaxing. We got a chance to do a pre-production and change things we weren’t satisfied with and had a lot of time to make it perfect."
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