Kreator, one of the few thrash bands that, despite some troublesome years, have withstood the test of time. Finally they pleasure us with a long awaited live album. Although I must admit that I had lost my interest in Kreator after the horrific Endorama album. I was nevertheless looking forward to this release and with good cause I might add.

Live Kreation starts with the instrumental “The Patriarch” before Kreator thunders into “Violent Revolution”, a song unfamiliar to me (just like the opener), from their latest same titled studio release. This song is excellent and shows that the band has finally gone back to their roots. The sound quality of this live album is very good (although maybe a bit too studio polished), but that is to be expected from a band that has been in the scene for over 15 years. Mille screams to his utmost but doesn’t really entertain the audience. No matter, he does a great job and so does the rest of the band. Classics like “Extreme Aggression”, “People Of The Lie”, “Pleasure To Kill” and “Betrayer” are played with an intensity that belies the age of the band members. Energy literally sizzles in the air as Mille screams ‘Terrible Certainty!’ and the audience seems to love every second of it.

Of course Kreator hasn’t forgotten their newer albums either and nicely manage to avoid the aforementioned terrible Endorama, except for the almost mandatory “Golden Age”. One new song that I really must mention is “Servant In Heaven – King In Hell”, yet again unfamiliar to me, but Mille and company prove with this song that Kreator isn’t ready to quit yet. In fact, I label this song already as a classic.

It has all the ingredients; straightforward metal lyrics, great guitar riffs and a sing along chorus. Hell yeah, the German masters of thrash are back, with a vengeance! The hatchet of war has been dug up once more, and gone are the melodic, force fed MTV melodies. Exit commercialism, enter aggression!

One drawback of this live release is the fact that it has been recorded during different live gigs in different venues. These kind of albums usually give me the impression that the band is to afraid to make mistakes and tries to cover them up with selecting the best performances. I don’t necessarily think this is the case with this album, but it is nevertheless a minor point of criticism. One other point of criticism is Mille’s vocals during “Black Sunrise”, where he shows that he is definitely better at unbridled aggressive screaming than actual singing. My last point of criticism is that one of Kreator’s best albums, Cause For Conflict is very poorly represented. The album only features “Lost”, which is yet again almost mandatory. The reason behind the lack of more tracks from Cause For Conflict probably stems from the fact that it is Kreator’s only release that doesn’t feature drummer Ventor.

Kreator delivered a worthy live album featuring 24 songs, and not one single album has been left out. If you consider yourself a Kreator fan then this is an absolute must buy album. Even if you don’t like what the band has done the last couple of years, there’s enough old songs to make this worth your while. And that’s a guarantee.