Epitome of Torture

Epitome of Torture was released by Steamhammer/SPV in Germany on 26 April 2013, the day for which Sodom had announced a release party at Endzeit in Essen; the rest of Europe followed on 29 April and North America on 7 May. It is the first album Tom Angelripper on bass and vocals and Bernemann on guitar made with drummer Markus "Makka" Freiwald, whose arrival the band had announced in December 2010. Makka had played in Despair and Flaming Anger, taken part in the Voodoocult project and played percussion as a session musician on Moonspell's Irreligious. Waldemar Sorychta produced again. The band went into the studio in October 2012; Makka recorded the drums for twelve songs in two days, after which Bernemann began the guitar sessions. The credits place the recording at Waldstreet Sound and the mix at Flying Pigs Studio, with Dennis Koehne mastering. Tom Angelripper said that alongside the usual Sodom material there were two or three calmer, more melodic songs, and described Sorychta as an exacting producer who knew every one of the band's weak spots. The cover, built around the band's mascot Knarrenheinz, was designed by Meran Karanitant, whose clients have included Six Feet Under, Hatebreed and Dimmu Borgir. A video for "Stigmatized", filmed in Berlin by the director Ronald Matthes with Roax Media, was released on 18 April 2013. The album came in four forms: a ten-track jewel-case CD, a limited digipak adding "Waterboarding" and "Splitting the Atom" together with a poster, a double LP adding those two songs and a Motörhead cover, "Ace of Spades", and a download. It spent one week on the German album chart at number 32. In the United States it sold around 800 copies in its first week and reached number 25 on Billboard's Top New Artist Albums (Heatseekers) chart. In Japan the limited digipak went on sale on 15 May 2013 as an import prepared for the Japanese market (OTCD-3183).