1. A Clockwork Out Of Order 2. Moment 22 3. Merciless Insanity 4. Tban - The Fastest 5. Honesty The Right Excuse 6. Dance Tarantella 7. Blind Illusions 8. Three Minator 9. Echoes From The Past 10. Stagedive To Hell

While Kazjurol were not Sweden's most notable speed/thrash metal export, their music more than fits the typical formal requirements in the genre. On Dance Tarantella the band even try to add some variety of their own into the mix, and although the result is left short of truly memorable, at least there is some real effort behind it. Everything is in place in the sound department, therefore it is a shame that the album does not feature more original or striking content. Some of the most straightforward pieces like Merciless Insanity and Stagedive To Hell are simple but sort of effective thrashers where the band don't hold back in the least, though of course the presentation still doesn't compare to the best of the field in a favorable way. Dance Tarantella can boast a couple of interesting moments, but eventually it ends up being like so many others, a bit of a faceless release.

1. Body Count 2. Enemy Within (Cycle Of Insanity) 3. Faith Against Faith 4. Infected 5. Demise Of Humanity 6. Status Nine 7. Frozen Refuge 8. Fall From Grace 9. Altered Image 10. Compelled By Fear

Killjoy may be better known for his work as the vocalist of the death metal band Necrophagia than for this off-shoot album from the time when Necrophagia was on hold. Nevertheless, Compelled By Fear is a decent, thrashy release on its own. With a shredding guitar sound and enough ideas in songwriting, this album manages to avoid a lot of the usual dullness that prevails on many lesser albums of the time. Complete with two crunchy instrumentals, the music is slightly more ambitious than one might have expected from this kind of a side-project. Even with the quality varying a bit, Compelled By Fear is quite a satisfactory piece of work.

1. The Dark Side Of The Mind 2. Brain Wash 3. Born To Kill 4. Elm Street 5. The World Is A Stage 6. Under The Sun

Although Korzus are actually one of the oldest thrash metal bands from Brazil, it wasn't until Pay For Your Lies that they started to make recordings in English. The earlier experience probably shows here in a positive way, as the sound of this mini album leaves little to be desired, being very heavy and full. In fact, the only nitpick production-wise is about the vocals that sound pretty thin especially when compared to the otherwise perfectly thick wall of sound. Musically this album features some great headbanging stuff with lots of good, strong riffs. Most tracks are rather short, fast bursts that just leave you hoping for more - with such simple but highly effective pieces like Brain Wash this album is bound to catch your interest. For its length, Pay For Your Lies is pretty satisfying.

1. Agony 2. Victim Of Progress 3. P.F.Y.L. 4. Beyond The Limits Of Insanity 5. Unpredictable Disease 6. Mass Illusion 7. Kids Of The Streets 8. Blood For Blood 9. Living In Pain 10. Raise Your Head 11. Midnight Madness 12. The Illuminated 13. Inutil

With Mass Illusion Korzus continued in the vein of very heavy and furious thrash metal. Agony is a particularly strong opening track and gives this album a great start even though the rest of the songs are not quite as distinctive. The songwriting is very consistent, though, and sticking to the style of heavy no-nonsense thrash sort of makes this album even a refreshing experience. In comparison to the preceding mini album, the sound of this full-length is somewhat more refined, especially the vocals are much heavier than before. Despite some slightly less interesting content than on Pay For Your Lies and the fact that Mass Illusion is not too distinguishable from the majority of old-school thrash metal releases, friends of a heavy sound in the style of Sepultura or Brazilian bands in general surely know what to expect from this one.

1. Endless Pain 2. Total Death 3. Storm Of The Beast 4. Tormentor 5. Son Of Evil 6. Flag Of Hate 7. Cry War 8. Bonebreaker 9. Living In Fear 10. Dying Victims

As one of the oldest German thrash metal bands, Kreator had an important position in the scene even worldwide. However, Endless Pain is really not that remarkable for other reasons than maybe its nostalgic predecessor status. The band's sound here is very primitive, raw and chaotic from the start. Whereas Slayer had a definitive focus on things already early on, Kreator in their initial form sound just plain messy. The frantic speed alone makes this album somewhat satisfactory, but due to the lack of everything else that matters it is also quite a tiresome listening experience. On this and the next couple of albums the vocal duties were shared between Mille and Ventor, and while Mille already got some good attitude going on this debut, the vocals on the whole are pretty ugly to say the least. As a nostalgic item Endless Pain may deserve its place, but the music seriously leaves something to be desired.

1. Choir Of The Damned 2. Ripping Corpse 3. Death Of Your Saviour 4. Pleasure To Kill 5. Riot Of Violence 6. The Pestilence 7. Carrion 8. Command Of The Blade 9. Under The Guillotine 10. Flag Of Hate (bonus) 11. Take Their Lives (bonus) 12. Awakening Of The Gods (bonus)

Considered to be a classic album by many, Kreator's Pleasure To Kill is essentially nothing more than a faster, even more intense but also better produced version of Endless Pain. In this sense the same good and bad points apply here, too. This album is a good example of high-speed antics taken to the extreme, but at the same time it is missing something important. Except for a couple of occasions, more weight is put on speed alone than riffs which are not quite strong enough to carry on through a full-length album. Many tracks here are just not distinctive enough to make it a day. In comparison, the bonus tracks (from the Flag Of Hate mini album) have only a slight edge over the original full-length release. Pleasure To Kill does deserve some respect for its sheer brutal execution alone, but it also represents a certain noisy part of the thrash metal genre that I'm honestly not too excited about.

1. Blind Faith 2. Storming With Menace 3. Terrible Certainty 4. As The World Burns 5. Toxic Trace 6. No Escape 7. One Of Us 8. Behind The Mirror

Terrible Certainty is a little more controlled album than Kreator's earlier efforts, but it is still far from what I would call great. There are already some obvious attempts at a more serious presentation, but the result is not too impressive. The music is maybe not quite as frantic as on Endless Pain or Pleasure To Kill though the actual stylistic differences are sparse. Mostly it's again too samey, one-dimensional and formulaic to result in a good album. Kreator's aggressive attitude is respectable, but a few albums of the same mash with no nuances whatsoever gets tiresome for me at least. Fortunately the band would soon follow with some definitely more credible performance.

1. Extreme Aggression 2. No Reason To Exist 3. Love Us Or Hate Us 4. Stream Of Consciousness 5. Some Pain Will Last 6. Betrayer 7. Don't Trust 8. Bringer Of Torture 9. Fatal Energy

With Extreme Aggression Kreator proved to be able to actually create something else than just frenzied noise. On this album the band occasionally slow down to a reasonable level while preserving their customary intensity and aggression, now in a more controlled and efficient form. These tracks contain some of the better riffs Kreator ever recorded, and as the songwriting on the whole is more mature than on the earlier albums, the result is simply stunning. For example, Some Pain Will Last might be the band's best track ever, an evil and menacing piece that one could not expect to find on their earlier releases. Mille's vocals are as raw as ever and therefore may not quite match the general development in the music, but that is not a serious issue. With some welcome improvements in the band's style, Extreme Aggression is a great album and about the only Kreator release I really like.

1. When The Sun Burns Red 2. Coma Of Souls 3. People Of The Lie 4. World Beyond 5. Terror Zone 6. Agents Of Brutality 7. Material World Paranoia 8. Twisted Urges 9. Hidden Dictator 10. Mental Slavery

Coma Of Souls may have been technically the most advanced Kreator release up to this point. The music is slightly more complex than on Extreme Aggression though unfortunately not as good. Although the songwriting has taken another step forward, the result sounds strangely emotionless and cold. Whereas the earlier albums were too simple and dumb for one to pay any closer attention to the music, Coma Of Souls is an example of another extreme. Initially this release may appear to completely lack memorable riffs and therefore sound pretty dull, but after some time it starts to grow on you. While the album is technically a fine piece of work, it can take quite a considerable amount of time to really get into it.

1. Winter Martyrium 2. Renewal 3. Reflection 4. Brainseed 5. Karmic Wheel 6. Realitatskontrolle 7. Zero To None 8. Europe After The Rain 9. Depression Unrest

The first moments of Kreator's Renewal must have been quite shocking to anyone who had expected the band to continue in their familiar style. On this album Mille's customary growls were replaced with plain hardcore-ish shouts that seriously border on monotonic, and the music lost some energy in favor of more complex, occasionally even experimental touches in songwriting. Although this change was not totally surprising, considering the technical approach already present on Coma Of Souls, the difference to Kreator's older albums is still quite drastic. It doesn't help the situation that this particular release sounds almost under-produced at times, and the overall feel is terribly depressive. Renewal is not as bad as you might have been led to believe, except a couple of more experimental tracks it remains sufficiently thrashy, but compared to Kreator's more energetic recordings this one comes across pretty bland. Not really something that you would like to listen too often.

1. Prevail 2. Catholic Despot 3. Progressive Proletarians 4. Crisis Of Disorder 5. Hate Inside Your Head 6. Bomb Threat 7. Men Without God 8. Lost 9. Dogmatic Authority 10. Sculpture Of Regret 11. Celestial Deliverance 12. State Oppression (bonus) 13. Isolation

Following the mixed-up Renewal, Kreator's Cause For Conflict was something of a temporary return to a more straightforward expression. While it doesn't quite compare to the most frantic antics of the band's early albums, at least it sounds slightly more energetic than Renewal, and the production is a definite improvement. The vocals continue in a shouty vein, but the outcome is more consistent than previously. Against all these points, it's a shame that most of the riffs are so unmemorable. Where Renewal could at least afford a few moments of genuinely interesting songwriting even though the result as a whole left something to be desired, here no songs really stick, which leads to the ultimate downfall of this album. It feels like all the necessary bits were available, but they are so badly scattered around that the whole thing is less than a sum of its parts. Cause For Conflict sounds like a standard effort that almost any band could have come up with, and it seriously tends to leave you numb in the long run.

1. Reconquering The Throne 2. The Patriarch 3. Violent Revolution 4. All Of The Same Blood (Unity) 5. Servant In Heaven - King In Hell 6. Second Awakening 7. Ghetto War 8. Replicas Of Life 9. Slave Machinery 10. Bitter Sweet Revenge 11. Mind On Fire 12. System Decay

After spending most of the nineties with either very forgettable or just too quirky releases, Kreator saw it appropriate to revive classic thrash metal with Violent Revolution, an album that couldn't have been more welcome. In the result Mille's vocals appear much like they did in the eighties, and as a whole this thing must be the most familiar-sounding Kreator release in a very long time. It's obvious that in addition to the vastly improved production values the band had matured a lot over the years. Probably the most essential difference to the old must be the numerous melodic overtones that were almost completely missing from the band's earlier efforts but form an essential factor of the resurrected Kreator. Only the most extreme purists could consider that as a drawback, though, as the band's sound is very tight and focused in its current form. Even though it's a bit hard to point out actual standout tracks, Violent Revolution shows that Kreator still had a fair amount of energy left in store.

1. Enemy Of God 2. Impossible Brutality 3. Suicide Terrorist 4. World Anarchy 5. Dystopia 6. Voices Of The Dead 7. Murder Fantasies 8. When Death Takes Its Dominion 9. One Evil Comes - A Million Follow 10. Dying Race Apocalypse 11. Under A Total Blackened Sky 12. The Ancient Plague

Initially Enemy Of God sounds like a logical continuation of Violent Revolution, in other words, a menacing and really melancholic album with the melodic aspects of the previous release taken even further. The result is quite stylish and all, but most tracks seem to plod along in a semi-lazy manner - the truly inspired moments are a bit too far and between. Technically there is little left to hope for and the quality is very consistent, it's just that musically this is nothing to lose sleep over. In fact quite the opposite; despite their seemingly aggressive nature many of these songs have almost a drowsy feel to them. I can kind of appreciate what the band were trying to do with this release, but quite honestly, there are a lot more exciting albums than this polished and unsurprising effort. Enemy Of God is certainly well done, but most of the time it feels like something running on autopilot.

1. Beyond Darkness 2. Euthanasia 3. Asleep & Buried 4. Opiate For The Masses 5. Struggle For Humanity 6. Experiments In Butchery 7. The Psycho 8. Soul Sacrifice 9. From Gehenna To Here 10. Abominable Bitch 11. Greedpeace 12. Mills Of Justice Slowly Grind 13. Splitting Lanes

The general impression about Kryptor is promising. While Greedpeace is this Czech band's only known release with English lyrics, their earlier routine shows in a positive way as the album sounds quite professional. The growling vocals nicely fit in the band's dark and robust sound, and although originality may not be the strong point of this release, there is a sufficient amount of fairly effective basic riffage mixed with a sense of somberness. You won't find too many catchy hooks here, but the music remains powerful enough that anyone with at least an average attention-span should be able to enjoy it. Not to forget about a couple of more memorable individual tracks like the forceful Experiments In Butchery that stand out from the rest. For the most part this recording simply provides a solid load of heavy thrash metal with hardened riffs.

1. Death Breath 2. Mongrel Horde 3. Down To The Inferno 4. Liars Dice 5. Passing Away 6. Kublai Khan 7. Clash Of The Swords 8. Battle Hymn (The Centurian)

Probably better known for their early Megadeth connections, Kublai Khan were one of those classic bands who never made more than one album. Even though Annihilation is not an exceptional release for its time, it features some interesting speed/thrash metal. The opener Death Breath is a true monster of a song, and the rest of the album is pretty much in the same vein - rather melodic yet heavy, with some good riffs and interesting, even inventive guitar work throughout. The production could have used some more work, though, and at times the music seems to lack some intensity. Anyhow, that does not hinder the fact that as a whole Annihilation is not without merits.