Anyone present on the Saturday night in 2021’s Bloodstock Festival would have been assured that the leaders of German thrash metal were still very much relevant to metal in 2021. A fearsome show that scooped set of the weekend for me, Kreator were in blistering form. Roll forward nearly 12 months and we now get the latest Kreator long player, Hate Űber Alles.
Their previous albums, 2017’s Gods of Violence and 2012’s Phantom Antichrist,may have rankled with the old school, the modern production and approach perhaps not matching those visceral early releases of Endless Pain and Pleasure to Kill. I openly admit that for me, Kreator today are as attractive a proposition as they were when I was a 15-year-old, trying to grapple with the onslaught from Essen. There’s something reassuring about Mille Petrozza and his band. They remain committed to their style of music, they rarely veer too far from their formula but here on album number 15, they may have thrown a few more curved balls into the mix.
Hate Űber Alles sees Petrozza reflecting on the state of the world around him. Translated as Hate Above All, the way we now communicate via social media and the internet, the wide imbalance, and the despair that we find ourselves in all receive the Kreator treatment. With bassist Frederic Leclerq making his recording debut with the band, although he’s been with the line-up for three years, there are also fresh ideas which have been brought to the table.
The title track and the ferocity of “Killer of Jesus” and “Crush the Tyrants” see Kreator in familiar heads down territory. It’s frenetic thrash metal of the highest order. Savage but with enough melody to get under the skin, sticking in the memory long enough to become firm favourites. Elsewhere, Kreator move into slightly less regularly charted waters. “Strongest of the Strong” was one of the earliest releases, and it’s anthemic without really capturing the imagination. Some might have panned this when it was first released, and I can see why, but there is a darkness to it that salvages it from the ‘average’ pile. Not so much “Become Immortal”, which is for me one of the weakest tracks on the album. Harking back to the band and metal’s roots, it’s got the kind of lyrics that don’t work for me, and I found it a bit cliched.
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Two tracks full of melody follow. “Conquer and Destroy” is a raging fireball, a track that allows drummer Jurgen ‘Ventor’ Reil to show his precision battery with a relentless display and yet retains a delivery that gets you humming along. It’s followed by possibly the most interesting approach taken by Petrozza on the whole album. The introduction of Berlin based Sofia Portanet on female vocals brings a new dimension to “Midnight Sun,” a track that is likely to be the most divisive on the whole of Hate Űber Alles. It retains quintessential elements of the Kreator sound with some of the most creative lead guitar work from Sami Yli-Sirnio on the whole album, but I can appreciate that many of those wanting more aggression will baulk at clean female vocals.
It’s the closing track “Dying Planet” which is one of the other standout pieces here. Co-written by Petrozza and Leclerq, it’s a slower paced monster that tackles the impact of humanity on their environment. Petrozza is in full snarling vocal mode, whilst the cacophony that dances below him boils with a heaviness and fury that proves you don’t need to blast away at 100mph all the time.
Overall, album number 15 sits comfortably alongside the most recent Kreator works. Does it match to the visceral nature of those early releases? Of course, it doesn’t. This is Kreator 2022 not 1984. Hate Űber Alles is another solid thrash album from a band who rarely stray from the blueprint. You tend to know what you get from Kreator, and this album is no different. It may not tear holes in the metal community, but for me, it works on every level with the slight variations in delivery bringing interest to an album that might well have been a little dull without them.
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Hate Űber Alles is out on June 3rd
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