Review Summary: The Cause is yet to come...
Subsequently after an underrated sixth studio album, forming-Drummer Jürgen 'Ventor' Reil left the band in 1994, around the same time, fans were accusing the band as a 'sell-out' due to fans hating the industrial metal style on their 1992 album Renewal which made the band go down in popularity.
Bassist Rob Fioretti left in 1993 and was replaced with Andreas Herz and soon afterwards, Reil and Herz left and were replaced with bassist Christian Giesler and ex-Whiplash drummer Joe Cangelosi and also their recording label Epic Records was dropped so Kreator had signed up with G.U.N. Recordings in early 1995.
The complete line-up on this album was:
Mille Petrozza - vocals, guitars
Frank Gosdzik - guitars
Christian Giesler - bass
Joe Cangelosi - drums
This was the last full-length to feature Frank Gosdzik.
The album starts off finely with the classic beginning-track "Prevail", this song is the perfect start off, including lyrics like "Death of emotions/Birth of decay/Fight revolution/Grips the heart of men/Rising rebellion/Losing control/Pure mental terror/Reformation needed to be" as well as them classic lyrics, the song has a powerful crunching and grinding guitar riff that makes this song a classic.
The album is a fun-filled wild ride from start to finish, with the similarities to albums like Sodom's Code Red from 1999, and slight pinches of similarities to Nailbomb: Point Blank (1994) and Slayer's crossover thrash masterpiece Undisputed Attitude.
It has a perfect beginning but a wrong ending with the finishing track "Isolation". With the song having a five minute break of silence and a stupid ending of evil sounds and effects, I just would have ended the album after the four minutes of the actual song. The album's sound is also a bit of a lack, it could have had better sound quality.
The ending is all wrong but rather than that, who could complain? It's fast. It's heavy. It's catchy. And it's got a great and talented performance.
A true great masterpiece of underrated industrial/thrash metal!
PROS:
- Talented musicianship
- Catchy and powerful
- A great album for newcomers
CONS:
- Bad production
- Terrible ending for the album
Recommended tracks:
- Prevail
- Catholics Despot
- Bomb Threat
Total score would be:
4.2 / 5.0
