Kreator - Pleasure to Kill - November, 1986

Album number two in the so-called "unholy trinity" of 1986 is an interesting one. Kreator reaches speeds here that are unheard of other than on Slayer's Reign in Blood, the first of that trinity, although these Germans do it much more sloppily than their American counterparts. In fact, while the speed of "Ripping Corpse" and the title track are impressive, there isn't a whole lot of interest riff-wise. When you strip the songs down, a lot of them are pretty mediocre riffs played really fucking fast. The album really doesn't do a whole lot for me until we get to the mid-paced section in the title track, which is just ruthless.

Mille and Ventor switch up doing vocals just like on their debut, but we are slowly seeing Mille taking over. Unlike the first though, I actually think the songs that Ventor sing on are better than most of the Mille-fronted ones. "Riot of Violence" is a killer thrash tune, while a lot of Mille's songs are just too fast and sloppy to be truly enjoyable, although "The Pestilence" is an absolute skull-crusher.

All that being said though, Pleasure to Kill is a pretty important album in the grand scheme of things. Other than Possessed's Seven Churches and the aforementioned Slayer album, this has got to be the biggest influence on death metal at the time, not to mention its hand in moving the thrash genre forward to more extreme tempos and harsher vocals. 

1. Choir of the Damned
2. Ripping Corpse
3. Death is Your Saviour
4. Pleasure to Kill
5. Riot of Violence
6. The Pestilence
7. Carrion
8. Command of the Blade
9. Under the Guillotine

Score: 8/10