Kreator-Coma of souls, 1990

Kreator were a very active band between 1985 and 1990 as they cranked out five lp's and two ep's during that period. They also went from being a bunch of kid playing noise to being the leaders of the German speed metal scene. In 1987 their Terrible Certainty album was a huge surprise to me as it was leaps and bounds above their previous efforts. Then in 1989 they released Extreme Aggression which was certainly good, but almost came across as a slightly watered down version of Terrible Certainly. By late 1990 the future for speed metal was probably a little sketchy as only a few bands like Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax had truly made it at least fairly big. I wondered what Kreator would do and I was overall pleased with the direction they took. Coma of souls is somewhat more varied in style than any of their previous albums. It contains some truly blistering tracks like "When the sun burns red" and "World Beyond" that show aggression and heaviness that I wasn't sure they were capable of. It also has tracks like "People of the lie" and "Terror Zone" that show the bands ability to be heavy, but vary the pace a bit. This is easily the band's second best album. My only real complaint is with the production or rather how it sounds on some songs on the album. The production is a little thin at times and perhaps this takes away from some of the power that I think could have been there. Still a really good speed metal album that holds up well today.