HISTORY
While America had extreme thrash-metal bands like
Dark Angel,
Devastation and
Slayer so did Germany. Germany had some of the most brutal thrash-metal bands in Europe and they were called
Destrtuction,
Sodom and of course
Kreator. All these bands played high-voltage extreme metal, but none of the bands did not make a super career until this day,
Kreator delivered
''Pleausre To Kill'' (which is considered to be one of their best albums), an album with very raw, fast and extreme material. But after that album the rest of the albums started to slowly decrease in pace but the extreme amosphere was still present, the band also started to deliver highly advanced musicianship and perfection from their albums until the day came when the frontman
Mille Petrozza started to experiment with their music. After
''Coma Of Souls'' the albums started to sound like industrial material, but
Kreator found their old thrash roots and mixed they mixed their past music with their new material, the albums maybe wasen't that great but they were better than the experimental albums.
ALBUM INFORMATION
This review will be focusing on one of their most technical and presiced albums ever, this album is called
''Terrible Certainty''. This album is their third full-length album, this album came after their huge monster hit
''Pleasure To Kill', you can definitely hear that this album was more directed towards the ''general public''. This album delivers complexive and difficult guitar work of great quality, this album also has one single section with some melody actually (which we will come back to). The vocals has been very improved if you compare this to their previous album, the vocals are still very sharp and aggressive, the bass is not the greatest and the drumming is very good. This whole album is almost like a shredd fest with hgue amounts of excellent guitar work.
THE BAND MEMBERS
Mille Petrozza /
Jorg Tritze - The two guitarists in this album, becuase I don't know which one plays what I will sum up the whole overall guitar work. If there are some instruments that is stealing the show in this album it should be the guitars, this must be some of the best tech-thrashing I have heard. The shredding and riffage would almost tear your flesh apart, I'm not saying that this is heavy as he** but this kind of guitar work really buts bands like
Metallica against the wall. The overall guitar work might not be so addictively catchy but this is good stuff thats for sure, you have though a load of different riffing styles. You got triplet riffing, really complex and fast riffing, some chuga-chuga shredding can be heard here. The guitar solos are still very skillfully played, the solos are most of the times chaotic, intensive and non-melodic. We can't forget
Mille's vocals, these vocals are aggressive, quick and sharp. He maybe needs some more tuning on his english pronunciation but this is good vocal work though, at least in my ears.
Rob Fioretti - Bassist in this album, I would say that this is the only members that can't be heard. You can though hear his bass once in a intro, but the bass is very low and quiet even there. Maybe my ears are bad or there is a possibility that the bass is totally overwhelmed by the furious guitars, I can only assume that
Rob keeps up with the rest of the guys becuase this bass is very quiet, almost non-existent.
Jurgen ''Ventor'' Reil - Drummer of this fine band, this guy knows how to beat the sh*t out of the drums, this is nothing compared to their previous album but this isen't bad though. The drumming is fast, variating, advanced and heavy, but be prepared becuase this album is not going to take any pauses when
Ventor starts to hammer on the drums. This is non-stop thrash drumming, the patterns might be fast all of them but there is some variety in them thats for sure.
MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS ALBUM
This was an intersting album thats for sure, there was some things I thought was good but there was also some things that I thought was bad, but we begin with the good stuff. One thing I enjoyed with the powerful guitar work, other albums I have encountered that had excellent and technical guitar work would be
Coroner's ''Mental Vortex'' and
Megadeth's ''Rust In Peace'' for example. I never got tired of the guitar work, the high amount of shredding, riffing and soloing was great, you could definitely hear that this is
Kreator's most technical and presiced work so far. A second thing I liked about this album was that the band was so focused on the absolute extremes like in
''Pleasure To Kill'', the band still kept their highly aggressive sound in their music but this was a great balance of evil and aggression. A third thing that I liked was the huge improvement of
Mille's english, he didn't lisp as much as before and his english skills was more fine-tuning in this album, I just have to give him credit for his shredding and sharp vocal style. These vocals has really given
Kreator a unique atmosphere and sound, which is a very important thing for a band in my opinion.
And now we can check out the things I didn't like so much, one thing I didn't like so much was the slightly uncatchy material. I thought that the material was a bit too technical and less catchier, songs like
Toxic Trace,
Behind The Mirror and
One Of Us were some songs that I thought were catchier than the rest. I enjoyed this more than the previous album but this album didn't have the catchiness that I had hoped for. I can't find any bigger negatives for this album I guess, well I think I can mntion one more and guess what that is? Its the bass! Again! Yes, I think people might get bored when I'm always drag up the bass but this was a case that I had to bash. I could only hear the bass only once and that was in the song called
Terrible Certanity and is was the intro where you can hear the bass. Maybe its just me but that was the only time when I could hear the bass, and then I mean the intro part, not the whole song.
MY CONCLUSION
Another new
Kreator experience, and a very thrasy one too. I have heard six albums from this band I only disliked
''Pleasure To Kill'', but the rest of the albums were all great, including this one. This was definitely extreme tech-thrash of good quality, the only things I didn't like about this album was the slightly, just slightly uncatchy material and the poor bass. This album his highly recommended to
Kreator fans and tech-thrash fans, people who like extreme thrash should check out this one. I thank you for taking time to read this review and I hope this wasen't too boring, any types of criticism are welcome.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS
-- Behind The Mirror
-- Toxic Trace
-- One Of Us
This album will be given a 4/5 because of the technical and advanced guitar work, sharp and pissed off vocals and high-voltage energy
