Band:	Kreator
Album:	Phantom Antichrist
Style:	Teutonic thrash metal
Release date:	June 2012

Disc I
01. Mars Mantra
02. Phantom Antichrist
03. Death To The World
04. From Flood Into Fire
05. Civilisation Collapse
06. United In Hate
07. The Few, The Proud, The Broken
08. Your Heaven, My Hell
09. Victory Will Come
10. Until Our Paths Cross Again
11. Iron Destiny [Japanese bonus]

Disc II [DVD] [Limited edition bonus]
+ Conquerers Of The Ice - The Making Of Phantom Antichrist
+ Harvesting The Grapes Of Horror

Live At Wacken 2011
01. Choir Of The Damned
02. Hordes Of Chaos
03. War Curse
04. Coma Of Souls / Endless Pain
05. Pleasure To Kill
06. Destroy What Destroys You
07. Phobia
08. Terrible Certainity / Reconquering The Throne
09. Flag Of Hate / Tormentor

+ Live At Wacken 2008
10. Violent Revolution
11. People Of The Lie
12. Europe After The Pain

Kreator! Aaaaaaahhhhh! That is all I need to state to introduce this review. 13th studio album from the reigning kings of Teutonic Thrash Metal and rightfully regarded as one of the most respected Metal bands of all time. Anybody wants to disagree with that? I thought not. It is refreshing to see a musical style best known for its impact on the 1990s still being alive and well in 2012.

Phantom Antichrist is a Kreator album alright. In-your-face thrash riffs dominate everything, the trademark Mille Petrozza's vocals are all over, the opening song packs more energy than half of the nuclear weaponry currently available worldwide. From the get-go, we have a grandstanding performance with little surprise. But little by little the band distills some song-writing magic and includes some unusual variation to spice up the tracks. Incidentally, it sounds like guitarist Sami Yli-Sirniö is reaching his full potential and bringing all of it in. A perfect example of this expanded artistic freedom can be heard in tracks like "From Flood Into Fire" and "The Few, The Proud, The Broken" where the breaks towards the end of those songs are simply brilliant and innovative. What could be called a false ballad concludes the record gracefully. I am indeed referring to "Until Our Paths Cross Again". Some people are reading this and trying to compute Kreator + ballad while their head is about to explode but yes in my opinion this one is a ballad. Again, by Thrash Metal standards that is.

As with the previous albums released under contract with label Nuclear Blast, production is bombastic. I guess you would not expect anything less when your label is called Nuclear Blast.

So there you have it. With the same base formula and the same intensity, we end up with a slightly different end product than before. But in the end it matters very little. As yet again this is one hell of a Thrash Metal album from Kreator. Phantom Antichrist is a ravenous beast of a release ready to shred everything in its path with aggressive riffs and smart hooks as weapons.