Kreator

The advance buzz on this album is tremendous, more so because it’s being heralded as not only a stepping back from the horrid pseudo-goth experiment that was Endorama, but also a return to the classic days of yore, when guys with bad haircuts and misspelled magic marker band logo-covered denim jackets lined up at underground record shops throwing down their hard-stolen cash for records with titles like Terrible Certainty, Pleasure to Kill and Extreme Aggression. Sure, Violent Revolution is markedly more metal than Mille and "whoever’s in the band these days” have exhibited the past few years, but a return to the glory days? Not quite. There are a few flashes of the Germanic teen angst that propelled this band into the forefront some 15-plus years ago ("All of the Same Blood,” "Second Awakening,” "Replicas of Life”), but much of this, while undoubtedly metal, sounds stodgy and weighed down with age. There’s a definite lack of reckless abandon and thrash metal mayhem, and you can’t have a return to the glory days without the energy, unless the glory days really were staid and conservative sounding and we all know they weren’t. Right?