Disco de Kreator: “Coma of Souls”

This is a great CD. I purchased the cassette tape back in 1990 and loved every song on it. Great era for thrash metal too! I even have the People of the Lie music video taped from The Headbangers Ball on MTV as well as an interview with Mille by Ricky Rackman. Classic stuff for sure. One of the better Kreator albums of their career. Highly recommended. Also pick up Violent Revolution and Enemy of God. All great music to work out to, it breathes energy...

First of all, let me say that Kreator is a spectacular band that ought to be considered one of the best thrash bands ever. They bury alot of the early American thrash. I have come to favor Kreator even over Slayer. In fact only Canada's own Sacrifice can top Kreator's best efforts in my honest opinion. With that being said, this album is one of those efforts. Some people complain that there might be less speed on this album than previous ones. This is just barely true, but one would be hard pressed to complain against the vast harmonies that now intermittenly mingle with Kreator's staple of speed. To put it plainly, when they aren't playing a million miles an hour they are producing brilliant melodic harmonies. Sometimes, if you listen closely, they are doing both. This album, in retrospect, was a template for the most recent stuff that they have released. Which to me, is probably the best stuff. It's still fast as hell, but now there's a little more going on. If you are a fan of early Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Testament or the like and you haven't heard Kreator before... do yourself a favor and pick this up or one of their latest albums. Not to discount the early stuff which is mind blowing, it's just that these albums are a little more immediately accessible.

Although Kreator released some excellent albums, Coma Of Souls is still my favourite album. Coma Of Souls was released in 1990, when Thrash Metal was still popular. Kreator was and still is the most influential European Thrash Metal band. Real Thrash Metal, not Nu Metal or Hardcore bands who use some Thrash Metal riffs and are therefore labelled Thrash Metal. 14 years after the release of the album, it is still exciting to listen to the album. The sound quality is still strong enough and the songs are extremely strong. Therefore Kreator still play a lot of songs like the title-track, "People Of The Lie" and "Terror Zone." Especially "Terror Zone" is an impressive song that starts with a melodic harmony, and then continues with a heavy mid-tempo part. After that the songs explodes with fast riffs and solos. Finally the song ends in the way that it started. The guitar solos are very impressive. Every solo is very recognizable and makes the song better. I recommend this album to everyone who likes diverse, fast, and aggressive but still melodic Thrash Metal with superb solos and well-thought-about lyrics.

In a lot of ways this album isn't exactly spectacular. The rhythm section is definitely adequate, but not too exciting either. The leads are a bit more open and genuinely melodic (at times) than is typical of thrash metal, and just have a different feel, to put it vaguely. than most thrash solos. But, in the end, they aren't terribly exciting either. And the vox are pretty good, a bit on the golbinish side for my tastes at first, but still above average for thrash, but, of course, vox don't matter a whole helluva a lot in thrash metal anyway. However, this album has got solid and varied riff-writing and songwriting on its side, which matter more than all those things combined. Coma of Souls is about as consistent of a thrash album as you'll ever here. It doesn't quite reach the heights of some of the older thrash classics, but there really isn't anything you can hold against this album, if you like thrash. That may not sound lack the strongest recommendation in the world, but it ain't too bad, I don't think. I guess I'll put it a bit more intensely: this is a damn good thrash album. Not quite a classic, but definitely worth your time.

The riffing on this album is a bit more frantic than what you'll typically here, but actually a bit more melodic as well. Kinda like Slayer with a hint of Iron Maiden. The songs aren't terribly long, but they still change the tempo and mood frequently, and Kreator know how to write a compelling and compact thrash song better than most others.(People of the Lie and World Beyond come to mind) I'm not gonna go into standout tracks too much, but a few demand attention. Agents of Brutality is by far the best song here. It's got perhaps the only truly great solo here, and has 2 excellent choruses, and a riffset that is beyond reproach. Very well constructed too, with a nice long intro, and a good bridge leading into the melodic, trem-picked chorus, which is followed immediately by the aforementioned solo. It's just very nicely paced, which is one of the most important aspects of a thrash song. The title track is another great song. It's hard to say anything in particular about, other than that it provides a more than adequate thrashing. Probably the best all-around set of riffs on the album. People of the Lie is a fairly short one, but both its main riffs and its chorus are very catchy. About as good as a 3 minute thrash song can get. When the Sun Burns Red is another great one, with a nice acoustic intro, which doesn't seem nearly as perfunctory as such things tend to. Again, it's hard to say what's good about it, beyond saying that it just has a bunch of cool riffs. I guess you'll just have to trust me on that one.

yeah, that's it. Great album here.

One of my favorite albums by Kreator. Great old school thrash metal. Can't go wrong. I don't have my vinyl with me anymore, so I had to buy the mp3's...