"Kreator", one of Germany's most success metal bands that gave some influences to the death-metal bands around the world continues to deliver mighty fine thrash-metal in this album. The band has now expanded to four band members, the newcomer is named Jorg Tritze and his is a guitar player. And the music has made some progress in this album, basically everything is improved and more catchy wibes has been created. This is also considered to be one of the bands most successful albums too, the band is delivering high-quality thrash-metal and this is how real thrash-metal should sound like in my opinion.
This album sounds very good compared to the albums that I have heard yet, Petrozza's vocals is way more better than in their other hugh album "Pleasure To Kill". Then he couldn't pronounce the words at 100% and it sounded like he was lisping at the same time, this time you can hear that the english words are sung with more accuracy and the vocals are more 'fine-tuned'. His vocals are sharper and more serious and sounds very good along the music, his guitar playing is very improved because the shredding is more precise and more solid. The rhythm sections are strong and the riffs are catchier and has more variation in them, the guitar solos is very good in this album, very enjoyable to listen to. The bass by the way is just rhythm in this album, no special sections with the bass so bass players would be a bit sad when I'm writing this now. The drumming is great, more drum patterns and more precised beats and of course, they are quite heavy too.
Well I described the instrumental part so I think that it would be unecessary to repeat them again but I can give a short information about the members. The front man Mille Petrozza is the vocalist and guitar player, Jorg Tritze is the second guitar player, Rob Fioretti is responsable for the bass and the drummer is Jurgen "Ventor" Reil. Everybody is doing an amazing job on this album because you can hear clearly that they have been sharpening their skills when it comes to metal.
Well then, lets go to the most precious part of the album the songs, The band goes out hard with "Extreme Aggression", a typical thrash-metal song based on intensive drumming and ferosious riffing, the vocals is awesome in this track because Mille delivers some very cool screams, the guitar solo is one of the best solos I've heard from this band. A catchy and heavy song with very cool vocals. "No Reason To Exist" delivers some heavy but somewhat odd riffs in the intro, the song gets catchy afterwards along with some skilled drumming. The song is both a catchy metal song mix with some classic thrashing elements like the fast drumming, a very good song with sweet riffs but with a wierd solo. "Love Us Or Hate Us" starts with song catchy shredding intro, the drums are building up and the thrashing is loose. This song is not so catchy to my ears but the thrasing formula is very good. "Stream Of Consciousness" starts with a slow intro but the riffing soon changes to a more chaotic structure, very fast drumming. The song does not grab my attention in any way, the song pattern changes after the most chaotic part and becomes a bit slower, it returns to its normal pattern though. "Some Pain Will Last" starts with some slow guitar chords and some light drumming, the instruments are slowly building up along with the vocals. The song is quite slow compared to the other songs, the song is bumpy and the riffing is nothing to applaud at. The song gets some more heaviness and some sweet fast shredds near the end along with a wicked solo. "Betrayer" starts with some heavy drumbeats and heavy guitar chords, the song is also a classic example of great thrash-metal with excellent drumming and bada** riffing. The vocals is very aggressive but not the best in my opinion. "Don't Trust" is also one of my favorites, this song is almost extremly catchy, the song is heavy and the riff is quite classic, it reminds you of old "Metallica", the best song of the album in my opinion. "Bringer Of Torture" enters with more devastating drumming and furious riffing, not so catchy and the song slows down at one moment. A very good thrash-metal song but not a highlight in this album. And now to the last track "Fatal Energy", one of my favorite tracks of this great album. It its quite catchy, its very heavy and has a very good structure which is easy to follow, great song.
So there you go and I hoped you enjoyed the review. This was a great album to me, almost everything suited me perfect, the guitar work was strong and heavy, the riffing styles was more variated and more into thrash than death riffing. Unfortunatly, the bass is not so hearable, of course you can hear it but there are no clear bass notes that plays alone. The drumming was nearly perfect in my ears, the tempos were good, the drum patterns was more variated and heavier and it was not the straight-on forever pounding. Amost every song was catchy to me and I guess people would think that as well. I will recommend this great album to all thrash-metal maniacs out there, even if you haven't heard so much about or from "Kreator" this is a good album to start with.
PROS
+ The vocals are sharper and is very improved
+ The guitars are very improved both in rhythm and lead
+ The drums are also very improved, the new drum patterns makes the songs more interesting
+ The songs does not sound similar to each other
+ This is nealry perfect thrash-metal in my opinion
CONS
- Not a big deal but the drums can be to much for those who are 'unused' to this kind of drumming
RECOMMENDED TRACKS
-- Extreme Aggression
-- Don't Trust
-- No Reason To Exist
-- Betrayer
Time for the final album rating and I just have to give this a: 5/5
(good thrash, of course).
