Hordes of Chaos
| Hordes of Chaos | ||||
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| Studio album by Kreator | ||||
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Publication |
January 16, 2009 |
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admission |
2008 |
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| Label (s) | SPV | |||
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Title (number) |
10 |
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running time |
38 min 27 s |
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Studio (s) |
Tritonus Studios, Berlin |
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Hordes of Chaos is the twelfth studio album by the German thrash metal band Kreator . It was released on January 16, 2009 via SPV . The album reached number 16 in the German album charts. For the first time, the band made it into the US album charts .
Emergence
After the previous album Enemy of God was released , the singer and guitarist Mille Petrozza began working on the new album. The first completed song was the title track "Hordes of Chaos". After Petrozza had finished the first four songs, he recorded a demo in Wuppertal together with Tim Schuldt, whom Petrozza had met during the production of an album by the band The Spook . Schuldt produced the demo and programmed the drum computer . The songwriting process dragged on over a longer period of time, as the band completed numerous tours and festival appearances. In addition, the work on the DVD "At the Pulse of Capitulation - Live in East Berlin 1990", which was released in 2008, took longer than planned.
According to Petrozza, the structure of the new songs for the album is relatively untypical for Kreator, as the music is based on the text and not the other way around. All lyrics and music were written by Mille Petrozza. The second guitarist Sami Yli-Sirniö took over some arrangements and wrote the vocal line for the song "Amok Run". The first joint rehearsals for the new material did not take place until spring 2008. A total of twelve songs were written, but only ten of them were recorded for the album. The reason for this was the lyrics of the songs, which according to Petrozza were "total nonsense". Among the ten songs on the album is "Corpses of Liberty" an instrumental .
As producers , the band chose Moses Schneider out of his hand as producer alternative rock -Bands as Tocotronic and Beatsteaks made a name. According to Petrozza, Schneider is currently “the best man there is for analogue recordings”. For Schneider it was the first collaboration with a metal band. In order to approach production with an open mind, Schneider deliberately did not familiarize himself with Kreator's music beforehand. The recordings took place in the Berlin Tritonus Studios. Schneider built the largest before the recording microphone in the world, which he "Smoke Head" ( Engl. : Rauchkopf ) called.
“Usually you put the microphones directly on the amplifier or on the drum . But we also wanted to record what is happening a meter behind. That's why we built the band in a circle so that there is a focal point, so to speak. It's loudest in the middle, and that's where the Smokehead had to be. "
For the first time since the album " Pleasure to Kill " (released in 1986) the band again recorded an album under live conditions. Each song was played up to ten times and recorded with an analog tape machine . After all, the best takes were used for the album. Modern recording techniques such as Pro Tools were deliberately avoided. Only the vocals and the solos were recorded later.
In addition to the ten songs on the album, the band also recorded cover versions of the songs "You Are (The Government)" by Bad Religion and "Alle gegen Alle" by the band Slime . In the latter song, Kreator were supported by musicians Thorsten Nagelschmidt from Muff Potter and Thees Uhlmann ( Tomte ). During the shoot, a “making-of” video was shot under the direction of Berlin filmmaker Stephanie von Beauvais .
The band shot a music video for the title song on November 2, 2008 in Berlin . It was directed by Joern Heitmann . Two versions were cut for the video. Mixed was Hordes of Chaos by Colin Richardson in London Miloco Studios. The mastering was done by Ted Jensen in the Sterling Sound studio in New York City . The album cover was designed by Joachim Luetke, who already created the artwork for Enemy of God and has worked for bands like Dimmu Borgir , Arch Enemy and Rage .
background
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According to Petrozza, the album title Hordes of Chaos describes the state of the world in 2008 when the album was written.
“ Hordes of Chaos is a realistic reflection of our time, in which the old blocks in east and west no longer exist. Today everyone fights politically against everyone else. There is chaos. Our album is a warning to future generations. Do not be fooled by the lies of your governments, but look for your own way in life. That is the basic message. "
"Amok Run" is about an American who first leaves a suicide note on YouTube and then runs amok . The lyrics to this song partly contain whole sentences of the gunman. The song "Destroy What Destroys You" refers to the clay-stone-shards song " Make broken what breaks you ". At times "Destroy What Destroys You" was the name of the album. The lyrics to "Absolute Misanthropy" is from Gaspar Noé - film " Misanthrope affected". “To the Afterborn” is based on Bertolt Brecht's “ Threepenny Opera ” , while “Radical Resistance” is about the uprisings in the Parisian suburbs. The texts also contain quotes from artists such as REM , Rio Reiser and Tocotronic.
Versions
In addition to the regular CD, there is a limited version that comes with a DVD . The DVD contains a making-of video, live recordings of the songs “Awakening of the Gods” and “Coma of Souls” (both recorded during the Summer Breeze Festival 2006) and the music video for the theme song. Due to a technical error, the two videos recorded during Summer Breeze cannot be played. Kreators record company SPV then made both videos available for free download on their homepage .
reception
Hordes of Chaos received excellent reviews from the trade press, although there were also some negative votes.
The German magazine Rock Hard and Metal Hammer voted Hordes of Chaos "Album of the Month". The rock-hard author Andreas Himmelstein praised the album as "an almost perfect symbiosis of playful demands with renouncing exaggerated self-expression" and awarded 9.5 out of 10 possible points. According to Anzo Sadoni from Metal Hammer, the album combines “all trademarks that distinguish the troupe and make them so popular with fans in Germany and around the world”. Sadoni gave the album six out of a possible seven points. At Powermetal.de the album received 9 out of 10 points, editor Peter Kubasch justified his judgment “Metal in pure form” with the guitar work by Sami Yli-Sirniö and with the fact that the album “is a return to old virtues like it a step into the future ”. The message traditionally typical for Kreator "anger, resistance, rousing" found a sound through the biggest experiment of the non-genre producer that "perfectly conveys" it.
In contrast to this, according to Metal.de employee Eckart , Hordes of Chaos is a "flawless Thrash Metal album, which however turned out to be a bit opaque in a few moments and does not reach the class of the previous albums". He gave the album seven out of ten points. Markus Grunow from the online magazine Metalnews.de was also less enthusiastic with 4.5 out of seven points. In his review he complained that the album "was recorded too well", did not contain any catchy tunes and was generally too short.
The album reached number 16 in the German and number 33 in the Austrian album charts. In the US , the album sold about 2,800 times in the first week and reached number 165 in the album charts there. The German magazine Visions had the album in their list of the 66 + 6 best metal albums of the third millennium in spring 2017.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b "The government is lying!" (Blast !, spring 2009, page 10)
- ↑ a b Marc Halupczok : "Extreme and satisfied". In: Metal Hammer , February 2009, pages 26-27
- ↑ a b Boris Kaiser: "Sometimes you have to hate". In: Rock Hard , February 2009, page 22ff.
- ^ A b c Frank Albrecht: "Life instead of perfection". In: Rock Hard, November 2008, page 30
- ↑ Ronny Bittner: "The largest microphone in the world". In: Rock Hard, October 2008, page 10
- ↑ a b Marc Halupczok: "The Power of Words". In: Metal Hammer, November 2008, page 22
- ↑ blabbermouth.net: KREATOR: New Video To Be Unveiled In Two Weeks
- ↑ blabbermouth.net: KREATOR: New Album Artwork Revealed
- ↑ metal.de: Interview / Story: Kreator
- ↑ blabbermouth.net: KREATOR: Missing Tracks From 'Hordes Of Chaos' Limited Edition Available For Free Download
- ↑ rockhard.de: Kreator - Hordes Of Chaos
- ↑ metal-hammer.de: Kreator - Hordes Of Chaos
- ↑ powermetal.de: [1]
- ↑ metal.de: CD Review: Kreator - Hordes of Chaos
- ↑ metalnews.de: Kreator - Hordes of Chaos
- ↑ blabbermouth.net: KREATOR: More Chart Positions Revealed; New Concert Footage Posted Online
- ↑ oA: The 66 + 6 best metal albums of the millennium . In: Visions, issue 289, pages 52–66
Web links
- Hordes of Chaos at Allmusic (English)
- Hordes of Chaos on MusicBrainz