HISTORY
They were called
Tormentor at the very first beginning, but then they became
Kreator. The thrash movement in Germany was starting to grow and three bands emerged,
Kreator,
Destruction and
Sodom. These bands became three of the best thrash-metal bands around in Germany, all of them played extreme thrash-metal more or less,
Kreator did influence alot f death-metal bands and/or even the whole genre itself. With devastating thrash-albums like
''Pleasure To Kill'' and
''Extreme Aggression'' the band suddenly started to slow down and the extreme music started do get calmer and even lamer if you ask the fans of this band. After the album
''Coma Of Souls'' the frontman
Mille Petrozza started to experiment and was trying to xpand their musical sound, these proved to be a quite bad move because the fans didn't like the new sound.
Kreator now sound like a industrial or even like a gothic metal band, but
Kreator found their way back to the thrash and you can hear that the thrash transformation was starting to grow in the album
''Violent Revolution''.
ALBUM INFORMATION
This review is about their album called
''Coma Of Souls'', an album were the band seemed to be running out of extreme material. But don't worry though, this album is guaranted to knock your clocks of. This album has some similarities with their previous album
''Extreme Aggression'', the only major difference between these two albums is the melodic tunes. While
''Extreme Aggression'' delivered face-smashing thrash-metal this album might seem a bit easier. This album is though still very aggressive in its material and with the new melodic elements this might grab the attention to much thrashers out there.
THE BAND MEMBERS
Mille Petrozza - Frontman to this quality thrash-metal band, as I mentioned before, this album had some similarities if you compare the overall material. But
Mille's guitar playing is great in this album, both rhythm, lead and acoustics. The shredding is very heavy and solid, the lead work is equally as good, the rhythm section is rock solid and the solos are nealy pure gold. The new melodic elements in this album is awesome, I can't really describe how good this actually is, I can just say that it sounds great!
Mille is also the vocalist in this band (almost forgot about the vocals), the vocals are quite raspy, sharp, loud and highly aggressive. The vocals really makes a great sound together with the aggressive music.
Frank ''Blackfire'' Gosdzik - Former member of
Sodom and performes as second guitarist of this band. If you hae heard of
Sodom before you can imagine how
Frank can handle a guitar. There is nothing wrong here, the rhythms and leads works flawless, he doesn't seem to have any problems to keep up with the rest of the crew. The overall guitar work is in other words catchy, heavy, melodic and technical.
Rob Fioretti - Bassist of this band, people who have read my reviews might noticed this thing I have against the bass. I'm sorry to tell you this but the bass is still pretty hidden behind the guitars, the only ''standout perfromance'' from the bass is an intro of the song called
Hidden Dictator. But you would easily hear if there was a bass there or not, the rhyhm section is though very solid and thick because of the bass but the actual bass frequence is not so clear or loud.
Jurgen ''Ventor'' Reil - Drummer of this band and drummer in all of
Kreator's albums. The drums in this album is great, there is nothing over exaggerated work on this drums and there are no signs of sloppiness. The drum patterns are heavy and catchy and sometimes more advanced than other drum parts, you got both pounding beats and double-kicking bass drumming. This is in other words good-quality thrash drumming.
THE SONGS
I thought that we could have a quick look at how the songs might sound like so we begin with
When The Sun Burns Red. The song starts with a acoustic rhythm guitar, followed by a calm acoustic melodic section and later a meldoic guitar solo jumps in. The nearly one minute calm intro stops, and the mayhem is loose. The song is very heavy and intensive, the classic
Kreator-formula is classic here I must say. The song later changes its pattern and some sweet triplet drumming and triplet guitar starts to play alongside a excellent solo, the band also let go of some catchy and fast chuga-chuga shredding before the end.
Coma Of Souls starts with some high-hat tapping which is followed by some catchy and complexive shredding. The drumming gets quite intensive and the guitar work feels a bit advanced, the guitar work is very energetic nad strong in this song. The guitar solo is very energetic, catchy and quite chaotic.
People Of The Lie, my favorite song from this album, the song starts with a half-melodic and slow intro. The drums increases in speed and the shredding breaks free, this song forces you to headbang because of the heavy and catchy shredding. This song has the best guitar solo of the whole album too, it is very technical, catchy and melodic (a real kick a** solo).
World Beyind starts with a very classic
Kreator formula, the intro riffage is quite raw, technical and fast. The song as a whole is pretty intense and technical, maybe not so catchy but still a good song.
Terror Zone begins with a apocalyptic intro with some ''sad'' tunes, but the drumming gets faster and the guitar work gets heavier and it feels very familiar to
Metallica's shredding style. The guitar work is tight, presiced and grinding, probably of of the best songs of this album.
We march on and look at the rest of these brilliant tracks.
Agents Of Brutality starts with a sound effect which is later followed by a raspy scream from
Mille. The song starts of pretty sluggish, but thats about to change. The song later transforms to a thrashing frenzy, everything is performed in a fast pace. Everything just feel so presiced and thought out in this song, this song is one of the most insane songs here.
Material World Paranoia enters with some complex drum work and power chords, this is also followed by a solo section. Once again the thrashing is in high-speed, the vocal work in this album does not appear as powerful as in the previous songs though. A classic thrash-based song, maybe not one of the best songs but it does rock hard.
Twisted Urges starts with a wierd and half-melodic intro, time to get extreme once more. This song is also very intensive, it is slightly catchy but the guitar work here is awesome. The guitar solo is very frantic, chaotic but yet played with great skill.
Hidden Dictator starts with a bass intro! Though it is pretty short but it still sounds cool, this song might be the only song with the best drum parts. This song is really forceful and catchy but this songs feels a bit similar to the rest of the songs.
Mental Slavery enters with some crual and heavy shredding along with heavy drumming. This song feels a bit calmer than the previous songs, though I think that this was not a perfect closer to this awesome album but the song is quite good. The changing song pattern is the savior for this song if you know what I mean.
MY CONCLUSION
A new
Kreator experience, and definitely a great one. I thought that this album was a great album, I thought that this album still showed
Kreator's aggressive nature. The band maybe didn't have so much new extreme material but this suited me just fine, I will definitely recommend this to all the fans of
Kreator. People who like extreme thrash-metal bands like
Dark Angel,
Destrcution,
Hypnoisa and similar bands might also check this out. Thank you for taking time to read this and I hope that this reviw has been a good guidance.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS
-- People Of The Lie
-- When The Sun Burns Red
-- Terror Zone
-- Twisted Urges
This album will get a 4/5 because of the aggressive overall material, awesome guitar work and Mille's unique vocals
