Long running German Thrash Godz Sodom seemingly have embraced the EP format in recent years. Bombenhagel is their fifth EP since 2018 and is a three track sample of some gutteral and primal heavy fucking metal. First things first, these are real drums and they are hit super hard and oh man, it's like things are right in the world again. Seriously, based on the strength of this EP and what I've heard in (war and) pieces on Spotify, recent full lengths Decision Day and Genesis XIX are on the list o shit to get.

Anway, what we have here with this EP is a re-recording of one of Sodom's big time anthems (the other being Ausgebombt) and two new songs, Coup de Grace and Pestiferous Posse. The re-record of Bombenhagel is actually pretty cool. The elements come together on this one too so it isn't forced. By that I mean you have bass, vocals, and guitars done by the same people that originally recorded this for the Persecution Mania album. Not only that, but Harris Johns does the first guitar solo on the re-record. He's the longtime producer of the band, their Martin Birch if you will. In a moment of coolness, Tom shouts out, "Harris!" before the solo kicks in. It's different from the original solo, but it fits the vibe well actually. For the most part, this is a pretty faithful rendition to the original. Of course the production sounds "heavier" in the sense that you can blast this at say, vol 35 instead of 45 like with old eighties albums and their "ADD, DDD, or AAD" ('Member those little rectangles?) productions / mastering. The conclusion to the song has a more spirited version of the German anthem included and there's also a snippet of the Russian anthem too I believe. I doubt there's any hard political slants here, I think it's because they also did a Russian version of Bombenhagel called Stalinhagel. This is just me speculating though.

The two new songs are a nice little treat. Both are relatively hard hitting and fast pounding, but Coup de Grace is the liveliest. It's also the shortest at barely three minutes. Tom shows he's actually pretty versatile as an extreme metal singer. He has a decent palette of voices that he uses from guttural grunts, vicious throat gargle screams, barking, and then just out and out shouting like a madman. Pestiferous Posse begins with a riff that has a bit of swagger in it before the manic intro solo kicks in. Since this one clocks in at about five minutes it feels like there's a bit more meat on here than the last one. Despite being quite longer, Posse avoids being too bloated. There's a few cool moshing, headbanging moments that break up the fast driving assault which adds to the extra running time.

The biggest detriment to Bombenhagel is its length. With only eight minutes of new songs, this is a bit hard to entice the diehards in. Maybe if there was one more new song and one more re-recorded track? I guess I can see this being a digital EP or have the songs be put on playlists, but it seems pretty ambitious to think someone's going to be putting on a three track physical cd often. Despite this, it is pretty cheap to buy online digitally so, hey. I can't comment on if the new songs sound like b-sides to Genesis XIX since I haven't heard it yet. But something tells me that's not the case. My hope is that Genesis XIX is in line with what's here. If it's significantly better my head may be exploded.