My love affair with Kreator started way back in 1986 with the “Pleasure to Kill” album back when album art was worth looking at because… well, because records were big and you could actually see what it was instead of peering at a CD for ages trying to make out what the hell it is. If you want the classic Kreator cover you would have to wait until the “Behind the Mirror” picture disc… excuse me while I wipe the drool from my chin.
Anyway that was then and Kreator have brought us firmly into the here and now with their new album “Enemy of God” complete with another excellent piece of cover art. Is this a good thing? Okay so the old skhool… eh school thrashers out there will be divided firmly into two camps about this one. There will be the diehard fans that think Kreator have done nothing good since the “Out of the Dark…” EP and there are those that have their entire back catalogue including the 2000 compilation album “Past Life Trauma”, but don’t get me started on compilation albums, you all know who you are.
“Enemy of God” is perhaps the best Kreator album in a decade, the band are still very musically tight and time hasn’t aged Millie’s voice too much. The album gives us twelve tracks that are quintessential Kreator. The structure, the riffs, the breaks and the tempo changes, it all sounds very familiar. And that’s probably my problem, I’ve heard it before. Tracks like “World Anarchy” I can’t help but think I’ve heard it before like perhaps on their 1989 release “Extreme Aggression” and “Under a Total Blackened Sky” has got a bit of a “Coma of Souls” vibe going on. This may have been intentional and they are attempting to return to there ‘roots’ as it were. If this is the case them all power to them, but I was hoping for something new from the Kreator stable.
I’ll be the first to admit I’m a thrash / death / speed metal snob, if there can be such a thing, and I’ll get all melancholy till the cows come home about how good things were in the good old days. But in the here and now Kreator have produced a very strong piece of work with rifts and lyrics that will rattle around your head for days. For all my misgivings about this work I can’t in my heart of hearts condemn it especially when I found myself nodding along to “Dying Race Apocalypse” wishing I still had my youth, my long hair and my Hi-Tech League baseball boots.
So in closing, just before I dig out my old Kreator t-shirt and mosh around my bedroom for an hour, Kreator have set the bar for 2005 and it’s pretty high.
Enemy of God OUT NOW!
www.kreator-terrorzone.de
