KREATOR - Hordes Of Chaos

10 songs
38:30 minutes
***** ****
Steamhammer / SPV

Bandpage

Back in the Eighties, Teutonic thrash metal was defined by Sodom, Destruction and Kreator. Twenty years later, all of them are still alive and kicking, with each having more than ten studio albums to back them up, but Hordes Of Chaos, Kreator’s twelfth CD, makes it more than clear that they have always been and will remain the most vital of them all.

Although they can’t keep up with their classic albums from their early career, Kreator surprise with an extremely organic sounding album, which is due to the fact that the instruments were recorded live on four track analogue tape by Moses Schneider (Beatsteaks, Tocotronic). This may seem an odd choice for a producer, but what we get in the end is a warm sounding but still ferociously thrashing album that you wouldn’t have expected from this band where the founding members – vocalist Mille Petrozza and drummer Jürgen “Ventor” Reil – are already nicely into their forties. Guitarist Sami Yli-Sirniö also plays with Waltari, by the way.

The album starts with its high speed title track which reminds me a little of Metallica’s Blackened, but apart from is testimony of a band that is anything but tired. From there on, it seems as if Kreator don’t intend to take prisoners as they unleash one mega velocity bomb after another, full of blasting rhythms and supersonic solos. The lyrics are fittingly incendiary, full of angry political messages, as was the custom in the thrash metal genre when it first came to see the light of day.

Hordes Of Chaos emulates the energy of Kreator’s early albums, and by choosing to record the way the are best – in a live situation – gives their new CD the important power so many late releases by old band often lack. The running time may seem a little slow, but their unrelenting performance makes sure that you won’t be bored at any time during its forty minutes.