The 90's were a busy time for extreme metal. Coming from the late 80's, this era of metal music saw death metal rising up, thrash metal falling down, groove metal taking the baton over, and nu metal unfortunately gaining loads of popularity. Thrash metal was one of the first genres that lost its reputation and quickly fell victim to the simplified formula of groove metal, and big thrash metal acts saw fit to change their sound to something more populair and "hip" to keep a fresh image amongst their ever growing fanbase. Imagine if you will, Metallica shifting to heavy metal and hard rock, Sodom going warpunk on us, Slayer and Sepultura hopping on the nu metal bandwagon and Destruction shifting to dumb pedestrian groove metal. One of the bands that took a less crappy direction was Kreator, they too shifted their sound to something a little simpler than the brutal thrash formula of prior efforts, but out of all the bands I just named, it's definitely Kreator that suffered the least from changing their approach, from a quality perspective, that is. Renewal is "phase 1" from Kreator's experimental period, and it showed us that the 90's were a goldmine for Kreator, because, using their newly found elements, they created one of the best albums the metal scene has ever witnessed.
Renewal is a work of pure artistic creativity, it changed the true meaning of catchiness, it's incredibly succesful at creating a fitting atmosphere, and serves as one of the most recognizable albums mankind has ever experienced. Overall, it's pretty ironic to see that Kreator, by experimenting, have kreated (ha-ha) an album that outgrows the worth of basically everything else they've made...combined. This simply has so much more of a meaning to it than their somewhat (read painfully) repetitive thrashy output and it's proof that this band are the best when they're not trying to please their fans. I truly wish Kreator would have continued experimenting after Endorama, because them stepping out of their experimental phase resulted in one of the most redundant "comebacks" the thrash metal scene ever had the misfortune to lay its eyes upon. This is way ahead of anything the band has made before or after it, it has much more of a personality and individual identity, instead of sounding like basically everything else ever the band made.
Sure, there might not be an abundance of ripping leads and riffs, but Renewal more than makes up for it by creating some of the catchiest licks the metal scene will ever see. This is truly on a whole new level of catchiness, even eclipsing albums like Heartwork as a result. It's also really impressive to see how everything on this album sets itself apart from basically everything ever and even its own material. Not a song here sounds even remotely similar to another, and you can easily tell them apart from each other. I can perfectly hum every song purely from memory, even months after last hearing it. (Don't ask me how I forgot about this.)
Being the first of 4 experimental albums from Kreator's 90's era, Renewal introduced the industrial elements to Kreator's formula. Along with hardcore, groove and perhaps even a little doom for the atmosphere, they created something truly unique. Mind you, most of these elements are merely aesthetical, the industrial elements are largely limited to the mechanical feeling of the production, the hardcore is found in some uptempo parts and the vocals, and the groove is the bulk of the slower material. Of course, Kreator didn't completely get rid of the thrash sound, but it's simply put in the background, with the band favouring more of a sinister and depressing approach to songwriting. This is incredibly dark and atmospheric, and the negativity in the aesthetics and lyrics make for a somewhat difficult album to sit through. One of the main reasons long-time fans/idiots didn't like this is the new vocal approach from Petrozza. Being the enemy of metal I am, I'm proudly going to say that this is by far the best performance of his entire career. There's genuine anger and frustration in the guy's tortured grunts, and while he's a bit grating on the ears, I feel that it's perfectly fitting to the album's idea. And even the lyrics (which are far more negative than usual) fit like a glove to what the band tried to achieve with this masterpiece.
I'm absolutely in love with the sound of this album, the thick and doomy sound of the guitars makes for absolutely crushing moments when the album hits its highest peaks, and even when the band are going flat-out thrashy on us it sounds fucking perfect, best heard on "Reflection", one of the most typical songs from this album. The rest of the band certainly don't leave anything to be desired though, the bass might not be that loud and you need to listen carefully to hear it, but I feel the thick sound of the guitars do more than enough to create a nice layer of bass for themselves. The drumming here is incredibly prominent, I feel this album is actually more drum-driven than it is guitar, the drums are very loud, and you can hear every single beat or hit Ventor produces here, which is also due to the incredibly high quality of the production job and mix. Everything feels perfectly balanced, some instruments might be louder than others, but I feel it's all very fitting to the album's sound.
Renewal is a depressing and tortured work of utter awesomeness. Of everything the band made, Pleasure To Kill is what comes the closest to the level of this magnum opus, but even that album doesn't have the right to lick the shoes of this masterpiece. I'm sure everyone will disagree with me that this is by far the best Kreator album because you need constant Coma Of Souls-dickriding to feel safe on a Kreator record (which is EXACTLY what they're doing nowadays), but this masterful. It shows a band leaving their past behind for something that gave them the possibilites to create one of the best albums ever, and that's exactly what they've done.
Buy
