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Gelsenkirchen (Münster district), year 1990.
Only a few months have passed since, with the release of the historic "Agent Orange" ('89), Tom Angelripper and company had the satisfaction of giving many of their detractors a rough ride.
On one hand, the entry of guitarist Frank "Blackfire" Gosdzik into the lineup managed to dispel even the last compositional uncertainties that the band had been dragging since their debut EP "In The Sign Of Evil" ('84, to date among the top examples of technical incompetence, ugliness of the components, and embarrassing mediocrity of lyrics: unforgettable is the onanistic-nihilistic anthem: "I masturbate to kill my self"), on the other, "Onkel" Tom has learned to excellently take on the role of frontman, significantly maturing as a lyricist as well. In short, with the approach of the decade's end, Sodom can face the national and European metal scene with heads held high, with increased familiarity in songwriting, and, which never hurts, a good slice of audience cheering for them.
However, during the promotional tour of "Agent Orange", the achieved balance of the trio breaks: Blackfire, at the invitation of His Majesty Mille Petrozza, decides to join their cousins Kreator, with whom he will record, the following year, the excellent "Coma Of Souls". For this reason, "Better Off Dead" already appears on paper as an album, if not of rupture, certainly of distancing from what the band had offered so far.
The attack of the opener "An Eye For An Eye" dispels any doubts: it takes only a few bars, a couple of guitar riffs, and a handful of tupa-tupa to grasp the effects of a small revolution that occurred at the production level. Veteran Harris Johns (among the architects, among others, of that sonic apocalypse that was Pestilence's "Consuming Impulse"), called back to the control room after putting his signature on the previous album, opts for a sharper sound, in some ways cleaner and strangely compressed, which almost seems to want to leave behind the rough and vaguely mosquito-like tones of previous albums. This renewed sonic attire, albeit leaving many genre purists bewildered, in my opinion, does not compromise the overall quality of the album at all and, indeed, fits perfectly with the style of the new guitarist Michael Hoffman (coming from the Francescobusiani Assassin).
It is precisely the different approach reserved by the latter to the guitar, in fact, that constitutes an additional point of rupture with the trio's previous productions. In his rather brief career with Sodom, the good Frank Gosdzik always managed, in my opinion, to make the best use of the "few means at his disposal": his style was quite recognizable, with a vague proto-black flavor, with gritty single-string rhythms and harmonizations on fourth intervals, contrasted by solos, often in tapping, where a certain melody, a certain catchiness often found space. Hoffman, for his part, prefers to avoid embarrassing attempts at imitation and opts for a guitar work that is somewhat personal, on one hand, in the more intense tracks, built on surgical rhythms, with an almost American aftertaste ("Shellfire Defense" and "Tarred And Feathered"), and, on the other, winks, not even too subtly, at the more traditional heavy, if not outright hard rock tout court.
It is precisely this remarkable variety of sounds and genres that will be both a curse and a blessing for "Better Off Dead". Taken as a whole, in fact, the album perhaps even reveals itself as too varied for the standards of the time: on one hand, the speed of furious speed/thrash flashes (such as the very intense "Bloodtrails"), in which the band shows how they can still feel comfortable with tempos and solutions purely dedicated to sonic aggression, on the other, that mixture of passion and respect that has always linked the leader Angelripper with the origins of the metal genre closely. In fact, the album features two covers: the splendid "Turn Your Head Around" (a lost gem from Tank's discography, a very recommended band with a blatantly motorheadish style) and, even, in full hard rock revival, "Cold Sweat" by Thin Lizzy. But, even more, it is the presence of mid/mid up tempos like "The Saw Is The Law" and "Resurrection" (in which, at the end, vaguely epic choruses, absolutely inconceivable until the previous album, even appear!) that mark the distance from what the trio had produced until then.
Even in the most violent episodes, then, the album seems permeated by a more orderly and more reasoned approach, less frantic. The increased familiarity with their instruments (Witchunter's progress on drums are still documented today in the best metal encyclopedias under the entry "Miracle"), greater compositional maturity, and the elimination of that kind of necessity to sound "bad" at all costs (such as Angelripper's vocals, much more restrained here and, even more so than before, in pure Lemmy style), ensure that the album can enjoy a groove and immediacy entirely new to the band's sound.
"Better Off Dead", although it cannot boast the title of masterpiece, remains to this day an excellent album. It is well-played, varied, perhaps only penalized by an excessive number of songs that, at least on first listens, spoil it with a sort of "dispersiveness", but, above all, it represents the perfectly successful attempt of a band to detach from the intransigence that characterized their sound in previous albums, without forgoing their extreme nature.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 An Eye for an Eye (04:25)
Oh great God, If you really exist
For many years, I am asking you why
Why are the innocent dead and the guilty alive?
Where is justice? Where is punishment
Something big is brewing
You can see it in my eyes
They burn with a beastly hatred
That will be realised
Why are the innocent dead?
Come on god, answer me
Why are the guilty alive?
Don't want to be deceived
They think they are above the law
They're trying to break my spine
Where is justice, where is punishment
Where is the human line
An eye for an eye
Inveterate despite
An eye for an eye
A one man war on crime
As I began to talk to god
I've even lost my mind
I only want to know one thing
What I've done, was it wrong or right
Why are the innocent dead?
Come on god, answer me
Why are the guilty alive?
Don't want to be deceived
They think they are above the law
They're trying to break my spine
Where is justice, where is punishment
Where is the human line
An eye for an eye
Inveterate despite
An eye for an eye
A one man war on crime
An eye for an eye
Inveterate despite
An eye for an eye
A one man war on crime
A loving husband, devoted father
Till the day the mob opened the fire
Retaliation and vindictiveness
His only mission and ardent desire
Why are the innocent dead?
Come on god, answer me
Why are the guilty alive?
Don't want to be deceived
They think they are above the law
They're trying to break my spine
Where is justice, where is punishment
Where is the human line
An eye for an eye
An eye for an eye
02 Shellfire Defense (04:22)
The cover of darkness no longer conceals
An approaching enemy
There are many ways to kick some ass
With updated technology
You will always get on your knees
In the war you're gonna fight
Prevent agreements between nations
No democracy but more genocide
Keep your eyes open your under control
There is something that's over the top
Penetration and power sends bullets of lead
Inside your body to do the job
Shellfire defense
Pray to god that he will take you in his hands
Shellfire defense
You wish to get the final shot
That makes your nightmare end
Eliminate the threat and minimise the risk
Supremacy against the attacks
New weapons in front of fighting troops
They get no chance for shooting back
Who gave you the criminal passions?
Inclinations to kill
Retribution demand victims
No matter what you feel
Keep your eyes open your under control
There is something that's over the top
Penetration and power sends bullets of lead
Inside your body to do the job
Shellfire defense
Pray to god that he will take you in his hands
Shellfire defense
You wish to get the final shot
That makes your nightmare end
Shellfire defense
Pray to god that he will take you in his hands
Shellfire defense
You wish to get the final shot
That makes your nightmare end
Long vanished is the age of blows with a club
Wholesale murder guarantee
Soldiers within the meaning of law
Decimate the dregs of society
Where's man's dignity and human nature?
Disarmament and combination
Fit in with the needs of present
Peace not revelation
Keep your eyes open your under control
There is something that's over the top
Penetration and power sends bullets of lead
Inside your body to do the job
Shellfire defense
Pray to god that he will take you in his hands
Shellfire defense
You wish to get the final shot
That makes your nightmare end
03 The Saw Is the Law (04:11)
Slazing scents taint with blood
Signed his path of death
Trace him to the place of fright
Searching for his daily bread
When midnight comes around
Be warned because he is out of sight
What carnal secrets does he hide
His ruthless rage will come
Buried deep inside his mind
The rites of the saw began
The saw is the law
The saw is the law
Executed children
Laughing mothers by their side
Feel the pain of ripping flesh
Those who've died
Have paid the price
And drawn their final breath
What carnal secrets does he hide
His ruthless rage will come
Buried deep inside his mind
The rites of the saw began
The saw is the law
The saw is the law
The saw is the law
The saw is the law
What carnal secrets did he hide
His worries of the flesh have come
With tears in his eyes and a gun in his hand
So ends the story of the chainsawman
The saw is the law
The saw is the law
The saw is the law
The saw is the law
The saw is the law
The saw is the law
The saw is the law
The law is the saw
The saw is the law
The law is the saw
08 Never Healing Wound (02:26)
Secluded by generalities
No eyes saw them before
Exiled and damned from birth till death
Rejected by their parents
Locked up as beasts
No clergy brought their souls to bless
Never ending pain
In the hour of their death
Driven to their tomb
By never healing wounds
Nobody perceived the cries
No famine got appeased
In hospitals of infanticide
Killers camouflaged
As harmless pediatrist
Children found no place to hide
Never ending pain
In the hour of their death
Driven to their tomb
By never healing wounds
Never ending pain
In the hour of their death
Driven to their tomb
By never healing wounds
With excrements soiled bodies
Starved by malnutrition
Whooping cough and AIDS disease
Now the regime is overthrown
Memorials are raised
But hopes to survive will freeze
Never ending pain
In the hour of their death
Driven to their tomb
By never healing wounds
10 Resurrection (04:50)
[Dedicated To : Tom's Dad, who died too early]
Your soul disappears in eyes of blue
With dignity and lonely lust
The moon is shining bright to you
Angels adore your mortal dust
Welcome to the paradise
Great master's hands will rise
To bring you to the holy place
Eternal life for a human race
Resurrection
Flesh to your bones
Everlasting fortune
You are born
Resurrection
With flowers of gold
Give credence to heaven
Believe in god
Your spirit was willing but your flesh was weak
Don't wanna leave the world of lies
They're standing around when you go to sleep
And give you no chance to say goodbye
Welcome to the paradise
Great master's hands will rise
To bring you to the holy place
Eternal life for a human race
Resurrection
Flesh to your bones
Everlasting fortune
You are born
Resurrection
With flowers of gold
Give credence to heaven
Believe in god
Resurrection
Flesh to your bones
Everlasting fortune
You are born
Resurrection
With flowers of gold
Give credence to heaven
Believe in god
Resurrection
Flesh to your bones
Everlasting fortune
You are born
Resurrection
With flowers of gold
Give credence to heaven
Believe in god
Now you go through a time of revival
Wisdom from above
A kingdom where you find your idol
Worship, liberty and love
Now you go through a time of revival
Wisdom from above
A kingdom where you find your idol
Worship, liberty and love
Resurrection
Flesh to your bones
Everlasting fortune
You are born
Resurrection
With flowers of gold
Give credence to heaven
Believe in god
11 Tarred and Feathered (03:02)
Source and seed of misanthropy
Is the age of inquisition
Where kings and queens got the power
To lay down immoral religions
Pursuit of innocent flesh
Shredding of their blood
Plundering and robbing
A thousand natural lusts
Hypnotised by the smell of death
Stiff walking to the stake
Amusement, tar and feathers
You are gonna loose your faith
Delivered from the hell's great fear
Spirits lost in gloom
Seek them in their dread abode
Tarred and feathered
Beautiful red-haired ladies
They got put in the pillory
Skinned alive or stoned to death
Broken on the wheel
Sanguinary with arms across
The king watched the scenery
Exorcised and quartered
In the shambles of sin
Hypnotised by the smell of death
Stiff walking to the stake
Amusement, tar and feathers
You are gonna loose your faith
Delivered from the hell's great fear
Spirits lost in gloom
Seek them in their dread abode
Tarred and feathered
Hypnotised by the smell of death
Stiff walking to the stake
Amusement, tar and feathers
You are gonna loose your faith
Delivered from the hell's great fear
Spirits lost in gloom
Seek them in their dread abode
Tarred and feathered
Tarred and feathered
Tarred and feathered
12 Stalinorgel (04:41)
Declaration of war by a madman
Offensive in blizzards and fog
Opening of the conflagration
Thrust to the hostile front
Snowed up Russian winter
There's nothing shining bright
Resistance in December
Against the deadly light
Stalinorgel
Carry the war into the enemy's camp
Stalinorgel
Stalinorgel
Vomiting fire - Infernal thunder
Stalinorgel
Pugnacity and national defense
Grim struggles hand to hand
Curtain of fire at the frontline
Capitulation and retreat out of this land
Snowed up Russian winter
There's nothing shining bright
Resistance in December
Against the deadly light
Stalinorgel
Carry the war into the enemy's camp
Stalinorgel
Stalinorgel
Vomiting fire - Infernal thunder
Stalinorgel
Stalinorgel
Carry the war into the enemy's camp
Stalinorgel
Stalinorgel
Vomiting fire - Infernal thunder
Stalinorgel
Arisen through their own fault by assumption of power
The end is immediately near
Red army struck back in triumphant advance
Madman lost the war and disappeared
Snow covered Russian winter
There's nothing shining bright
Resistance in December
Against the deadly light
Stalinorgel
Carry the war into the enemy's camp
Stalinorgel
Stalinorgel
Vomiting fire - Infernal thunder
Stalinorgel
Stalinorgel
Carry the war into the enemy's camp
Stalinorgel
Stalinorgel
Vomiting fire - Infernal thunder
Stalinorgel
Stalinorgel
Carry the war into the enemy's camp
Stalinorgel
Stalinorgel
Vomiting fire - Infernal thunder
Stalinorgel
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