I've been following Kreator ever since Terrible Certainty and have always been seduced by the passion Mille Petrozza and his cohorts have put across in each release. Mille - like Machine Head's Rob Flynn - is first and foremost a metal fan as well as a musician. He lives, breathes, sleeps and eats metal. This release is full of the usual conviction and intensity but also has more 'hooks' or catchy melodies than its predecessor Enemy of God. This is no Opeth or Agalloch. Progressive is not a common word in Kreator circles, although the terrific Outcast and Endorama albums show that Kreator can dabble in the subtle and melancholic if it chooses to. But this release absolutely smacks of freshness and virtuosity and will make you want to bounce off walls when you hear it. Well it does for me and I'm a 38 year old father of two. So there. This is probably their strongest album since Extreme Agression and for those of you enjoying the current thrash revival, this will remind you what we've been missing all these years.

If you're reading this, you're a Kreator fan. If you're a Kreator fan you most likely enjoyed their last release "Enemy of God" and classics like "Coma of Souls" and "Terrible Certainty." If you like those, you'll like "Hordes of Chaos."

This is traditional thrash metal, from a band that was there in the beginning. The fact that this CD was recorded as a band, and not one track at a time comes through as a more raw, powerful sound.

Mille's voice is the same and the riffs are all killer.

As for the DVD, it's pretty cool. Nothing ground-breaking, but it gives you a snippet (the "making of..." DVD is about 20 minutes long) of what the band is like behind the music. The end of the DVD is, however, the coolest.... but that's cause an internet posting I made on [..]about the band is shown. How sweet is that!

Again, if you like Kreator.... buy this!

Kreator's Hordes of Chaos is a masterpiece. It's as simple as that. As soon as the intro to the title track concludes 43 seconds into the song, Sami's riffing will take you. When Mille opens his mouth a few seconds later, you're gone.

More speedy riffs follow and lead right into an extremely catchy chorus, eventually culminating in the chilling "everyone against everyone against everyone" team scream at the end of the song. This impressive track includes some of the best lyrics on the album, and I wouldn't be surprised if it remains a live staple for years to come. It ends on the same mellower riff with which it began, but don't relax yet. "Hordes of Chaos" gives way to Ventor's hammering of the bass drums. Another rapid riff follows, and before you know it Mille is shrieking "Warcurse" into your ears. "Escalation" takes over where "Warcurse" leaves off and leads into the eerie intro of "Amok Run." Mille attempts to sing over the intro, reminiscent of his vocals in the middle of "The Ancient Plague" on Enemy of God. The song gradually builds itself up into the most intense on the album. During the chorus it is IMPOSSIBLE not to thrash. I've yet to listen to this song without kicking something over.

Following a slower, more melodic outro to "Amok Run" (but still with Mille yelling), Kreator hammers the listener with the brutality of "Destroy What Destroys You," another track I can definitely see them playing live for the next decade. Next up is "Radical Resistance" and "Absolute Misanthropy," the two weakest tracks on the album, but still swift thrashers that fit in nicely. "To the Afterborn" slows things down a little bit. It makes up for speed and brutality with a chilling chorus and some scattered shrieking by Mille. "To the Afterborn" spills over into "Corpses of Liberty," a dark instrumental clocking in at just under a minute. It acts as a fine segway into "Demon Prince," which is a solid closer comprising a handful of melodic riffs and an equal number of fast ones. The chorus, again, is extremely catchy.

While the album only contains ten tracks and clocks in at just under 40 minutes, I can't say I felt like it should have been longer. Kreator keeps things moving quickly (and brutally) on Hordes, but they also slow it down in all the right places. As other reviewers have already pointed out, there are many more melodic riffs and hooks utilized here than on previous releases, but they don't take away from the music at all. Instead, they complement the faster, meatier portion of each song excellently.

Hordes also feels very natural. This can be attributed not only to the refinement of each track musically, but to the recording of each instrument simultaneously as opposed to individually (I LOVE when bands do this). The lyrics are solid, as I've come to expect from Kreator, and Mille's vocals are still devastating. While some fans have voiced complaints about his more high-pitched approach on this album (mainly, the screaming/shrieking), I prefer it to his traditional style. It helps keeps things fresh and adds to the intensity of each track.

Of Kreator's three "return to form" albums, Hordes is easily my favorite, surpassing both "Violent Revolution" and "Enemy of God." For any skeptical Kreator fans, hear me now: The critics are wrong. Hordes is pure gold. Don't miss out on a good ass-kicking.

Very good album in most aspects, vocals are pushed a little bit to forward in the mix, guitars sound a bit thin, and less distorted than most Kreator albums. Not only that but the album feels like they tried to top 2005's Enemy Of God, and just couldnt pull it off. Sure there are great tracks like, the title track, Warcurse and Demon Prince but it just doesn't send the chills up the back of my neck like the last album, which in my opinion was the best since Coma Of Souls. So its not bad, its decent as i said, just not stellar like i had hoped for.

If you, the reader, check out my other reviews, you'll see I'm primarily a metal head, but I delve into lots of different stuff. Hence, I can be a Johnny-come-lately in discovering bands, because nobody my age (48) listens to the heavy stuff, so I'm a lone pioneer.

Why, then, would one still love the heaviness that is Kreator, when some would think it's time to tone it down a bit? Well, because ever since I was a young pup, I've loved hard music, starting with KISS and Aerosmith's "Rocks" and going from there. Bear in mind that in the late 1970's this was very heavy stuff, along with Black Sabbath and Zeppelin.

I play guitar, and I love the instrument and its amazing versatility. With metal in all its variety, you get power, enthusiasm and chops. It still gets my blood pumping. I stumbled on Kreator from a sample CD from Britain's "Metal Hammer" magazine, and bought "Hordes of Chaos" as a cut from that CD was included, and they stood out over the rest of the samples.

Some call this pure thrash, hybrid death/thrash, or whatever. What I hear is a band that sonically is in the same league as Exodus, as fine a purveyor of thrash as there is, and my favorite thrash band, easily out-doing Metallica. So, while not an Exodus derivative, the slashing guitars, the pounding drums and requisite wounded puma vocals make for a great headbanging session.

I don't usually break down each cut, as I tend to view the CD as an overall package. That said, I find the only real fault is the brevity of the CD, at just 38 minutes. I could easily dig an hour's worth of this prime assault. Time to check out some of their other stuff (and I did get the seminal "Pleasure To Kill", which is sonically innovating, but suffers from a poor production). Us old farts gotta keep the blood pressure up.