Kreator is well into its fourth decade of making Thrash Metal goodness. Hate Über Alles is their 15th studio album and first since Gods of Violence back in 2017.
For people that don’t know, Hate Uber Alles means Hate above all else. This album draws the portrait and decries all types of hate in the world. They paint the picture of a world that is gone asunder and there is no turning back. Is it too late or is mankind doomed to make the same mistakes over and over again?
If you never heard of Kreator, I think you have been living under a rock for decades. Much of the band’s uniqueness in the scene is unambiguously attributed to vocalist Mille Petrozza. In contrast to the other German Thrash titans running amok at the time, Mille’s high-pitched shriek channels some Bruce Dickinson with helpings of hardcore punk. It’s beyond conventional thrash and much more melodic on this release.
Hatred is a feeling that everyone has experienced at some point in their lives. It’s easy to feel hateful especially if you’ve been betrayed or hurt by someone you trusted.
Hate is a profound emotion that can pollute your spirit and poison your soul. If you have hate in your life, you probably know how damaging and mind-consuming it can become.
Hate Uber Alles starts off with an ominous intro called ‘’Sergio Corbucci is Dead’’. Sergio Corbucci was one of the grandfathers of Spaghetti Westerns next to Sergio Leone. It’s like when Metallica starts their shows with ‘’The Ecstasy of Gold’’, the calm before the storm.
The title track bashes that we live in a divided world. Hate is at every corner, in every part of our lives and everywhere we see. It’s the world we live in and the decisions you make now will matter in the future. People choose hate before anything else because it can be easier. Sometimes you are going to hate something you don’t understand.
This album talks about hate in many facets and shows the dark side of human nature. In the ‘’Killing of Jesus’’, they speak about one of the earliest instances of hate, the death of Jesus. How come humans would kill someone that was there to help them and the treachery behind it. It’s one of the first times hate was really portrayed in the history of the world.
Throughout history, humans have demonstrated a sickening willingness to inflict cruelty on one another. Part of the explanation may be that we have an unfortunate tendency to see certain groups – especially outsiders and vulnerable people perceived as low status – as being less than fully human.
It’s not just that we are malicious and unforgiving, we humans are worryingly close-minded too. If people were rational and open-minded, then the straightforward way to correct someone’s false beliefs would be to present them with some relevant facts. Maybe if we spent a little more time in contemplation we would not be so blinkered. Sadly, for many of us, it seems the prospect of spending time in our own thoughts is so anathema that we’d actually rather electrocute ourselves.
Not only do we tend to overestimate our own virtuousness, but we are also inclined to moral hypocrisy.
One way for us to mitigate against our human failings would be if we were inclined to choose leaders with rare virtuousness and skill. Sadly, we seem to have the opposite knack.
Ever since humans have walked the earth, history has revealed the dark side of human nature- the human propensities for rage, violence, aggression, unscrupulousness, domination, and tyrannical behavior. All previous forms of social organization have demonstrated the truth of this fact.
The two standout tracks for me are ‘’Demonic Future’’ and ‘’Dying Planet’’. These songs bring the most powerful message across. Both songs speak about the future generations and what they will face because of what we have done. The future is bleak, nature is dying and our planet is on the cusp of collapse. From warfare to famine to utter destruction, the world we live in is in dire straits. It’s probably too late to make amends and but it’s time to make a difference. You want your children and grandchildren to live in a better world than we left it. The time is now for change, forget the hate, forget the selfishness, and start to build a better tomorrow, or else, there will be this Demonic Future ahead of us.
This album is loaded with riffs reminiscent of Exodus, Slayer, and all the other acts we know and love. One of the standout performances on this record though is the bass played by newcomer Frédéric Leclercq (formerly of Dragonforce), it’s got tons of fills, and some pretty nice patterns throughout. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about the drumming which was clunky especially the cymbals at times. I’m just happy that the production was very nice and that I could actually hear the bass. The solos on this record are nicely done but nothing unknown to the world of metal. They follow scale patterns pretty often but then again so does every solo to some extent.
I thought the new Destruction album was great but ‘Hate Uber Alles’ is even better and Kreator takes the throne of not only European Thrash Metal but Thrash Metal as a whole.