German thrash legends Kreator resume their remarkable late-career resurgence on superb 16th outing Krushers Of The World.
Once upon a time, thrash metal felt like a sprint to the finish line. All head-rushing high tempos and breakneck hard edges, its 100mph evolution of heavy music was built around sudden impact and punishing immediacy. Four-and-a-half decades on, though, it’s turned into an intriguing endurance race. That most of the genre’s original pacesetters are still duking it out to prove their violence and virility is impressive in itself, but more and more Kreator look like they'll be the last band standing.
Indeed, Krushers Of The World suggests the Teutonic titans have decades left in the tank. Roaring back from 2022’s patchy Hate Über Alles – a record with too much fiddling the formula and late-era Slayer imitation – album 16 resumes the remarkable run they’ve been on since 2005’s awesome Enemy Of God.
Reinventing the steel is not required. Venomous opener Seven Serpents, for instance, is the kind of track that could have come at any point in their career but a gloriously grandiose execution, razorblade lightness of touch and the sheer glee as Mille Petrozza hisses his lyrics about ‘snakes in human form’ makes it as thrilling today as it would’ve been in 1984. Satanic Anarchy doubles-down, breaking up its infernal onslaught with a celebratory chorus about the importance of outsider spirit. ‘Rise up, confront the enemy / Create a new reality / And bring down tyranny / This cult, a timeless synergy!’
On paper, the stomping title-track should buckle under the weight of throwback irony or self-conscious kringe. Instead, it plays out as an unapologetically old-school headbanger anthem, out to flatten posers and naysayers alike with tank-track heft. Tränenpalast (‘Palace Of Tears’) hits even harder, calling on HIRAES vocalist Britta Görtz for an audacious tribute to witchy horror movie classic Suspiria – even paying homage to Goblin’s iconically creepy score.
Perhaps it’s down to so many of their contemporaries soullessly phoning it in or scrabbling for a fury long burnt-out that Kreator feel quite so essential in 2026. The dive-bombing high drama of Blood Of Our Blood is compellingly concussive, yeah, Combatants’ proggy atmospherics are deftly executed and Psychotic Imperator is custom-tooled for more trademark oddball fist-pumping singalongs, but it’s the way that Mille and his bandmates are so obviously bought in that lift these songs bordering on outright silliness to another level.
Capping it all off, tombstone closer Loyal To The Grave is partially a poignant reflection on the inevitability that all things come to an end. Far more than that, it’s a pulverising promise that when the day comes Kreator will die with their ass-kicking boots on.
Verdict: 4/5
For fans of: Trivium, Testament, Slayer
Krushers Of The World is out now via Nuclear Blast.
