Going back to the mid-80’s to visit with a cornerstone of the German thrash scene and the debut of one of metal’s most prolific acts. This week will also showcase a new feature – me not using a shitload of words.

Kreator – Endless Pain

Released October 11, 1985 via Noise Records

My Favorite Tracks – Endless Pain, Flag Of Hate, Total Death

Kreator formed in 1982, known by the names Metal Militia, Tyrant and Tormentor before finally settling on Kreator. The band was staffed by guitarist/vocalist Mille Petrozza, bassist Rob Fioretti and drummer/singer Jürgen Reil, aka Ventor. Both Mille and Ventor remain the nucleus of Kreator to this day.

Noise Records was an upstart metal record label in Europe that was just off the ground and running by 1985. The label signed Kreator and Endless Pain was recorded in just ten days. Noise would become a hotbed of European heavy metal and Kreator would rise to be a signature act for Noise.

Endless Pain was a primitive and cruel-sounding record, a thrash album coupled with the early extreme metal noise fathered by the likes of Venom, Celtic Frost, Bathory and Mercyful Fate. This was raw, aggressive and evil – it was not cultivated for a greater pop audience, rather it was metal made by and for the growing masses who were pushing for heavier and heavier music in the wake of thrash’s arrival.

Given the album’s savage and simple construction, as well as no real need to visit the lyrical themes of each song in isolation, I’ll skip a lot of steps today and simply list the tracks, then discuss a few highlights.

There is one other thing to note here – while Mille has been the voice of Kreator for the bulk of existence, on this album Mille and Ventor split vocal duties. Mille does vocals on songs 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 while Ventor handles the odd-numbered stuff.

Endless Pain

Total Death

Storm Of The Beast

Tormentor

Son Of Evil

Flag Of Hate

Cry War

Bonebreaker

Living In Fear

Dying Victims

This album is a buzzsaw, with lo-fi production and a savage approach to both instruments and lyrics. There is a similar cadence to many of the songs, it is in some ways an embryonic version of what Kreator would become. It doesn’t offer much in the way of variety – either you like this album or you don’t, there isn’t a lot of “track 5 is cool but 6 I can skip.” It’s an all or nothing deal.

While this could be called “underdeveloped” by some, Endless Pain is hailed as a classic just the way it is. Thrash as a whole was moving toward major label deals and high-end production values around this time in the US, while in Germany it was a far more raw offering that kept the underground and “dangerous” feeling alive – while Satanic Panic parents where wailing about hair metal, this kind of stuff was also around.

For me this album is the perfect balance of listenable production and the raw sound many metal bands were looking for, or were perhaps stuck with due to budget constraints. No this production won’t win any industry awards, but the music is clear and listenable. I have heard and even liked a fair number of awfully produced albums in my years, but Endless Pain was never one that upset me. It walks the line very well and its lo-fi atmosphere enhances the record.

And this noise would bear influence – just as Kreator and their countrymen Sodom and Destruction were keeping thrash lo-fi and running along the same lines as Venom and the like, a new group of musicians influenced by all of this would lay the groundwork for death metal and black metal. By the time 1990 rolled around, heavy metal had mutated quite a bit from how it entered the 1980’s.

A few of the songs from Endless Pain have become Kreator staples – the title track and Flag Of Hate are the signature tunes from the record, and Tormentor also sees a fair bit of play to this day. This raw set was not forgotten as Kreator refined their sound through the ensuing years, rather it was celebrated as the savage beginning of a new metal legend.

Endless Pain kicked off the nearly 40-year career of the band that became legends of thrash, German and worldwide. While US thrash was creeping up sales charts and was just about to explode in mainstream popularity, Kreator and their peers offered up a new, raw approach that would help steer several other metal subgenre offshoots in the years since. Kreator have refined and reinvented themselves over the decades but at times it seems their first notes still ring the loudest.