“SNAKE IN HUMAN FORM!” Snake in human form. There may be no more appropriate way to chime in the new year than with “Mille” Petrozza continuing the reign of Kreator as the most sincere, heart-on-sleeve heavy metal band still powerin’ along 43 years since their formation. And – despite my ire at having to correct the auto-correct at least a dozen times – the teutonic thrash metal titans’ 16th album Krushers of the World does nothing to disprove my claim. This is exactly the kind of thing you want from Petrozza and crew.
Also c’mon…that album cover is killer, admit it.
By now, the band’s history might as well be carved with mammoth bone into the side of a mountain: one of the “Big 4” of German thrash, along with Sodom, Destruction, and Tankard. A raw and rough gem of a debut, an instant classic on the follow-up. I came aboard around 1990 with the slick “let’s all scoop our guitars like Metallica” sound of Coma of Souls, keeping an ear out as guitarist/vocalist Petrozza would navigate the band into wherever his muse took him, but always hewing close to an ultra-tight chugging thrash metal unit and embracing anthemic hooks without sounding anemic. I remember laughing out loud at 2022’s Hate Über Alles’ unbridled directness on the title track, but I also remember how killer that album was overall, despite some flat production issues.
Three years later Krushers of the World makes very minor tweaks to the formula, but what is tweaked is all to the album’s benefit. If you’re wondering where the opening line of this review came from, it’s from the ripper of an opener “Seven Serpents.” Harmonized licks intermingle with rapid-fire double kicks, breakdowns, and a hook in the chorus that had me dancing in the kitchen with aggressive intent…except my family walked in, didn’t hear anything, just looked in horror as their father and husband appeared to be yelling at invisible clouds in the sky, in a robe, spilling coffee.
That’s a big compliment, by the way. If your thrash doesn’t make me get up and move around, it’s not doing its job.
That’s the gear the rest of the album traffics in, to beat a metaphor to death. If you’ve heard the singles, you know “Satanic Anarchy” is a ridiculously awesome silly name and also a rager in the riff department. You also know (because damn, Mille shouts it enough in the song) that “Tränepalast” has some serious Dario Argento and Goblin homage going on. The rest of the songs settle somewhere in between those poles. The title track is more of a mid-paced anthem, and “Combatants” has a great power metal vibe in the way it carries itself.
On the more extreme side of the coin, there are riffs on “Barbarian” and “Blood of Our Blood” that could fit right in on a Slayer record – one of the good ones. That’s the stuff I’m looking for. That, and song titles like “Psychotic Imperator” and “Deathscream.” All of this can be found on Krushers of the World, and damn if I don’t kind of love it. Easily their best since Phantom Antichrist.
“THIS IS HUMANITY! DEATHSCREAM!” Deathscream.
– Chris
Krushers of the World will be available January 16 from Nuclear Blast Records. For more information on Kreator, check out their website or Facebook/Instagram pages.