Genesis XIX

Genesis XIX came four years after Decision Day (2016), and it was the first full-length album Sodom made as a four-piece with two guitars. Frank Blackfire and Yorck Segatz had joined in 2018, and in January 2020 Toni Merkel took over the drums from Stefan "Husky" Hüskens, less than two weeks after Husky announced he was leaving; Tom Angelripper, as ever, played bass and sang. The band began recording with Siggi Bemm at Woodhouse Studio in Hagen in June 2020 and finished the mix there in August, and Patrick W. Engel mastered the record. Looking back in 2023, Angelripper said that the pandemic had given the band more time for writing and recording, the one good thing about that period, and that the extra time in the studio was what made Genesis XIX a wonderful album. There are twelve songs. The short instrumental "Blind Superstition" opens the album ahead of "Sodom & Gomorrah" and "Euthanasia"; the title song, fourth in the running order, had been heard a year earlier on the Out of the Frontline Trench EP, and "Nicht mehr mein Land" is sung in German. As on Decision Day, the cover painting is by Joe Petagno, the artist known for his work with Motörhead. Steamhammer/SPV released the album in Europe on 27 November 2020 as a CD digipak, a gatefold double LP, a download and a stream, and Entertainment One (eOne) handled North America. It entered the German album chart at number 10 on 4 December and stayed for two weeks. Marquee's Japanese edition came out two days before the European one, on 25 November, and on 25 August 2021 Marquee added a Special Edition on SHM-CD carrying the three songs of the Bombenhagel EP as bonus tracks.