by Steve Huey

Code Red is something of an attempt to recapture the frenzied chaos of Sodom's earlier work, and it partially succeeds. Partially, because the band's technique has improved substantially since the mid-'80s, which has made their work more accessible yet tamed a bit of the unbridled fury (some called it sloppiness) that polarized listeners into love-'em-or-hate-'em camps early on. The 1999 version of Sodom sounds strangely out of time, somewhere in between godfathers of contemporary death metal and throwbacks to underground '80s thrash. This means that Code Red isn't a stunning new statement or re-imagining of the band's sound, but it is a solid example of that sound, and at this point, that's probably all that's necessary.