The band was not taken seriously at first, and many music media thought that they were just a second-rate venom clone band with creative lyrics. And one person changed all this. This man is Frank Blackfire Gosdzik, who succeeded Michael Wulf as the new guitarist. Frank tells Tom that thrash metal has not only stayed on the theme of terror/supernatural/Satan like venom, but the band should be more involved in the theme of politics, war and society. Tom has always been interested in different wars, but he always thinks these wars are downright stupid. Frank's suggestion was later reflected in his first album "Persecution Mania" recorded with the band. The lyrics in the album show a new theme, and the cooperation between band members is more mature. Sodoma then toured Europe with the Swiss thrash metal delegation as kroner. After the tour, Sodoma returned to the studio to create. The next album Agent Orange sold100000 copies in Germany alone. This made the band famous and highly praised in the world, and established its position as one of the three giants of thrash metal. To this day, Agent Orange is still the highest-selling German thrash metal album in the world.
However, problems gradually emerged within the band. Tom and Chris started drinking (Chris used to take drugs). What's more, Frank Gosdzik is tired of the band's poor live performances. Miller Petrozza, the leader of the founder, wanted to recruit Frank to join the founder after he lost a guitarist. Frank joined the founder for his own musical future. Tom Angel Ripp went on to look for a guitarist, and finally michael hoffman, the former guitarist of the German thrash metal band Assassin, joined the band.
With a brand-new lineup, Sodoma released the album "Never surrender before death" on 1990. During his tour in South America, michael hoffman decided to stay in Brazil, so he decided to quit the band. Andy Brings succeeded him and recorded the album "Beating the Vein" with the band, which was more inclined to the death metal style than the previous album. This album is also the last album recorded by Sodoma and the drummer Chris Witchhunter, who was expelled from the band (for drinking and taking drugs). The holy Moses and the atom Steif, the living dead of the former drummer, become the new drummer Sodom.
This lineup recorded the next album "Get What You deserve". The dead metal elements in the last album disappeared, and more punk elements were added to the music. This album has a strange cover design, and many fans are disappointed with the band's new music direction. And this album also marks the international decline of Sodoma, because thrash metal gradually lost its commercial market in the late 1990s. At the same time, Tom Angelripper also formed another band of his own. The new band mainly covers some German native songs (adapted into heavy metal style, of course).
1995 Sodoma released the album Masquerade in Blood. The guitarist of this album is a new face named Stellari, but his cooperation with the band is not long. He was eventually arrested and imprisoned for drug problems, and has been hard to find since then. The drummer Atomic Steif has also left, and Tom Angelripper needs to recruit new members again. Therefore, Bernd Bernman Koster (guitar) and Bobby Schottkovsky (drummer) joined the band. This lineup has been maintained until now.
The cover of the next album "Till Death Do Us Part" has received a lot of controversy. This album also marks the band's upcoming return to thrash metal, and the band's music style is more similar to suicidal tendencies. The controversial song "Fuck the Police" also appeared on the album. Sodoma filmed the MV for this song and became the most famous MV in Sodoma. After this album, Sodoma released Code Red at 1999. This is a complete piece of thrash metal's return to China, and it is the purest sound of De Thrash Metal in 1980s, which has been well received by fans and critics. The limited edition of this album also includes a CD in memory of Sodoma, titled "Hail to the Gods". In 200 1 year, the album M- 16 came out, which is a concept album about the Vietnam War. As the name implies, it is the famous gun M- 16. Then the band toured with The Founder and Destruction. During the tour, Sodoma finally ended the tour ahead of schedule due to the personal conflict between Tom Angelripper and Marcel Schirmer, the bassist/lead singer of Destruction. The origin of its contradiction is that "Destruction" claims that Sodom has completely stolen the musical style of "Destruction".
In 2003, the band recorded a live CD for two called One Night in Bangkok, Thailand. In 2006, Sodoma released the band's self-titled album Sodoma. This album is called Sodoma, according to Angelripper's explanation: Every band needs an album with the same name. However, due to the production time of the live DVD "King of Fallen" exceeding the expected time, the release of the album was forced to be postponed.
In 2007, Steamhammer asked Tom if the band had any songs that were going to be released in the "evil sign" EP (of course, songs that were not released in the end). Tom agreed, so the company suggested that Tom find former drummer Chris Wichita Duddeck and guitarist Tomb Raider (real name Franz Josef Pepi) to re-record this classic EP and also record these unreleased songs at that time. This new album is called The Final Sign of Evil. Meanwhile, Tom said that Sodoma's current lineup (Tom, Bernd and Bobby) is working on the creation and recording of a new album, which is expected to be released this year. The name of the album has not been determined yet. Chris Duddeck, the wizard hunter, died of liver failure on September 7th, 2008 after years of fighting cancer.