Confession time; when the word SODOM turned up on the list of available promos, we got a little bit over-excited. We all knew the German three-piece had been recording a new album and they'd only been in the studio since October, surely it couldn't be finished already? Well no, for it turned out that "Sacred Warpath" is more of a taster than a main course. It's not the upcoming fifteenth album at all, but an EP consisting of one new and three live songs. And if you've listened to any SODOM record from their three decades of active service, you already know what it sounds like.

The title track is the main attraction here and true to form, it's a wickedly malevolent thrasher. All of their trademarks are present; the guitar riffs sound storm-lashed and vindictive, Tom Angelripper's vocals are desperate screams of anguish and there's an almost Black Metal feel running through it. This is not the party Thrash of GAMA BOMB or ANTHRAX, there are no drunken zombies falling off skateboards and instead, SODOM provide the soundtrack to a hellish landscape of barbwire and corpses. It's not their best song and it certainly doesn't match anything off of their game-changing 2010 opus "In War And Pieces", but it's reliably brutal and raw enough to get their fan base salivating.

Elsewhere, the three live songs are all perfectly fine, the highlight being the motor-mouthed cover of "Surfin' Bird" at the beginning of "The Saw Is The Law". "Stigmatized" meanwhile is suitably fast paced, the whiplash inducing main riff is as appealing as ever and it's easy to envision the circle pit it must have kicked up. And lastly, "City Of God" from their underrated self-titled album is plenty of fun too, especially as Angelripper sounds exactly the same as he does in the studio.

All of which serves as a nice stopgap before the full length. It's no instant classic but if you absolutely, positively must have some new SODOM and can't wait any longer, it'll do fine for now.<