German thrash legends SODOM will release their Lords Of Depravity II DVD on June 28th in Europe and on July 13th in the North America via SPV/Steamhammer.

The double digipak DVD with O-Card features:

DVD 1: the complete history 1995 – 2009 approximately 230 minutes

DVD 2: Live features, video clips, deleted scenes approximately 180 minutes

Sodom mainman Tom Angelripper talks Lords Of Depravity II:

“Five years after releasing our first Sodom DVD, you’re now holding the second part in your hands. To begin with I want to thank you for your patience. In the meantime it happened a lot, which we want to give you an account of with this film.

The story of LOD - part 1 ended in the year 1995, which included many ups and downs for me. It was a year I had to make a lot of decisions in, which where of essential importance for my career and further musical future. The last contractual album with SPV, Masquerade In Blood blazed the trail for rebound. When drummer Atomic Steif and guitarist Strahli left the band after the accomplishment of this album, I thought about forming a completely new band or turn my back on the music business forever. I lacked the willingness to discuss each of my decisions with the band members. I had to look ahead. The numerous replacements of band members in the past unnerved me and tested my mettle. The idea to start a solo project emerged through many intense conversations with friends and my musical surroundings. Producer Ulli Pösselt also encouraged me to this enterprise. A record label, which evinced the willingness in supporting the project was found straight. The Tom Angelripper – future ONKEL TOM – project came into being and released four albums through the label GUN Records. I realized quickly, that living without Sodom was unacceptable for me. The record label wasn’t enthusiastic about perpetuating Sodom, the more so as the albums of the solo project worked out well in view of the circumstances at that time, even within the non-metal scene. I was advised to put Sodom on hold or to draw the curtain for good. To achieve a common purpose I convinced the head of the record label to recall Sodom to life with a completely new line-up. I became acquainted with drummer Bobby by fluke, later with guitarist Bernemann, who both roistered together in the bands CROWS and RANDALICA. The phase of us getting to know each other certainly is described at length in this film. After a couple of rehearsals we decided to go on together and record a new album. This seemed like a new birth to me, and we got down to work, 'cause finally there were a lot of live shows to be played again. Initially, all this was virgin soil to Bobby and Bernemann. Our first tour, which we were doing together with many top-class bands turned out to be a long desired dream coming true for both of them. I finally made the attempt to establish a permanent line-up, which succeeded despite the hard time.

The second half of the '90s has really been tough and confusing to the whole metal-scene and music business. I don't want to speculate about the reasons here, but it was a time, when many bands resigned and split up. Many of them had to realign musically, which was a complete flop in many of these cases. The extant fans didn't want any change and turned away. To me it was a certain decision to go on like before and keep the comparatively steady fan community. It was worth it, since we outlived the lean period together with the help from our fans. We've always been a band, who crosses the scene with blinders. We never cared about what others were doing and we never let the record labels force us to change something to sell more records or become more commercial. Thrash metal was our way of doing something we were keen on and expressing openly what came into our heads without mincing our words. This is one thing, which never changed to this day. A band has to be authentic and should not sell itself.

In the following years we travelled all around the world and soon there was hardly any country whose beer specialities we didn't give a try. I love thinking back of all these concerts... Whether it be in South America, Asia, Australia or Europe - everywhere we've been well received and celebrated properly. This film is going to let you look behind the scene. At many shows a cameraman was attending us, who tried to also catch the atmosphere backstage and during the tour. It's almost unbelievable how much material has been filmed, assembled and probably for the first time been released in this manner. I'm very glad, that Sodom is still getting booked for being the cult band as such and is still regarded as the band most friendly towards their fans. Nowadays this doesn't seem to be understood by many others. Working on satisfying the fans is as much important as the music itself. We've always tried to get in contact with our fans after the show, signing autographs, having a beer together while chatting. We've never been that kind of "rock stars", who leave their fans instantly after the show when being reputed to have done their work. My co-musicians always bolstered me and quickly understood what Sodom is all about. It's not about us - the focus is always on the fans. If they're happy, we're happy, too.

Then, the early Sodom history caught up with us again. The record label wanted to re-release the debut In The Sign Of Evil and asked me, if there were any unreleased songs. At the third of our class reunions, I sat together with Chris Witchhunter and Grave Violator to talk about this. Grave Violator could remember that we've had material for one full-fledged album, but the record label wanted to produce a five-track EP only. This has been quite usual in the 80s. He still owned a recording of seven songs, which had been done in our old rehearsal room and which we had totally forgotten about. According to this, these songs had to be practised anew in our old line-up. These, partly very tragic years up to the release of Final Sign Of Evil are reprocessed in this film by many interviews. Back then neither of us suspected Chris' disease to be progressed so far to be a lethal threat to him.

Being on tour in South America with Sodom in 2009 I got a phone call, which exceeded our worst apprehensions. This is a topic dealt with marginally in this film, because we closed it with our 25th anniversary.

Now have fun watching LOD2! I hope you will encourage me in my idea of doing a third part. I thank you for your support, which hopefully will conduct us to our 30th anniversary.”

You are the best, keep on thrashin'!"