I’m only a casual Sodom fan. I’ve got some of the German thrash icon's records, and have enjoyed albums like Agent Orange, M-16, and Code Red pretty well, but I wouldn’t call myself a fanatic. With that said, the Sodom dual-DVD set Lords of Depravity, Part 1 is not only a lock for the best band DVD of the year, it’s also the greatest music-oriented DVD I have ever had the pleasure to witness.

The set is divided into two distinct disks: Historical Depravity, a Sodom biography from the years 1982-1995, and Live Depravity, a collection of 22 songs played live at various large venues during the years 2003-2005.

Although the focus throughout the DVD set is naturally on Tom Angelripper, his band, and the supporting cast of characters through its history, the real star here is the person who edited the whole lot. This is no more so than on Live Depravity. It’s become more and more standard that live albums have incredible, high-fidelity sound, and there’s no deviation from that here, as the clarity and power of the performances are superb... almost like it’s taken directly from the studio recordings.

The irony here is that part of what makes the live DVD so impressive is also what you might decry about it, namely the dubiousness of what is coming through your speakers and what was actually performed. Two of the songs in the set are video collages of three+ performances of the same song in different locations. So Angelripper will be belting out "Among the Weirdcong," sporting a scruffy beard on a lit stage at night, and then it’ll cut to the man, clean shaven, at an open air festival in broad daylight, and then back and forth again and again. In contrast, it’s clear that although the sources of the video footage varies, the sound track is taken from only one source; so what makes the end result such a marvel is the extreme care that the editor took in making every note, drum fill, vocal, and even audience reaction to be perfectly in time and sync with the song. Contrast this with something like Emperor’s Emperial Live Ceremony, which has a section with the sound of a huge drum fill that isn’t performed on video (despite the video and audio allegedly being from a single source), and you begin to appreciate on what goes on behind the scenes in making a proper, believable product.

At first, I scoffed at the collage, thinking it made for a pathetic excuse for a representation of a live performance, and rather for some manner of smoke-and-mirrors video. You might think so, too, and wouldn’t be wrong. However, I’ve changed my perception, as indeed any video is but a *representation* of a live experience, and in the end, this is all meant to be entertainment. In this sense, Live Depravity is the epitome of the word for this medium.

Now, the other 20 songs on the set are not collages. Like the bits and pieces that make up those two particular tracks, the footage is spectacular, with outstanding shots of all three members of the band, taken from all the angles any fan could hope for. The tracks jump around and return from venue to venue, and the lot is punctuated effectively with shots of the band behind stage or in transit between tours. There’s just enough crowd participation and interaction worked into the mix, the highlight being "Die Stumme Ursel," when Angelripper trades his bass for a blow-up sex doll, and jumps into the photo pit to perform the song. The quality and consistency of the songs are again not only perfect, but uniform, renewing the questions about the actual source of the audio. Just let it go and enjoy, already.

Historical Depravity benefits equally as well from the tremendous editing and pacing job. From setting the scene on the area of the thoroughly blue-collar, mining town in Germany where Sodom grew out of, to each of the band’s demo and studio recordings, music videos, and major live performances until 1995. The pacing is never rushed, and each chapter is given its proper attention and time. The extensive interviews with a very large list of people brings so much color to the story – there are interviews with as many characters in the Sodom tale as you could hope for (from ex-band members to former work buddies) except for those who are either dead, or in the case of guitarist Strahli, were suddenly thrown in jail and were never heard from again.

This patchwork of narrative, live, historical footage and photos, extensive companion booklets for both the live and biographic disks, and interviews make for strong non-fiction drama. The engaging story goes along from genuinely funny recollections (like the origin of how Tom Angelripper started playing bass, to mildly unsettling episodes, like the entire collection of segments with ex-drummer Chris Witchhunter, which are shot in rather foreboding light, with the frighteningly drunk, poorly aged man seemingly always holding a full bottle of beer, and which culminates in an abrupt end at his getting angry and threatening to smash the camera upon being asked why he was kicked out of the band more than 10 years before).

Conforming to the rock and metal stereotype, alcohol indeed has a strong role in Sodom’s existence, but unlike the majority of band documentaries that feature this dependence in a sort of puerile, embarrassing light, all the elements presented in Historical Depravity are done with the utmost professionalism. Any sort of uncomfortable or embarrassing episodes are purely for the purpose of advancing the story, which is overflowing with so many narrative gems that trying to recount all the highlights would take pages.

This DVD set is so fine, that even minor flaws like clunky animated segues (but give the guys a break, already. Top quality animation costs big money), subtitles (the entire documentary is in German) that often whizz by far too fast to catch, or how the subtitles consistently misspell Harris Johns’ name, are so trivial in comparison to the overall quality of the Lords of Depravity, Part 1 that they are rendered null and void. I simply cannot wait for part 2. If you are any kind of metal fan at all, you owe is to yourself to get this DVD set without fail. (10/10)