Kreator

Kreator is a thrash metal band from Essen, Germany, formed in 1982. The group is led by vocalist and rhythm guitarist Mille Petrozza and drummer Jürgen Reil, with Sami Yli-Sirniö on lead guitar and Frédéric Leclercq on bass in its current lineup. Over time, the band’s membership changes frequently, especially on bass and lead guitar, while Petrozza and Reil remain the only original members. Reil leaves the band briefly in 1994 before returning in 1996. Yli-Sirniö joins as lead guitarist in 2001, and Leclercq joins in 2019, replacing Christian Giesler, who has been a member since 1994.

Kreator releases fifteen studio albums, two EPs, two live albums and three compilation albums. Its second studio album, Pleasure to Kill, is regarded as one of the most influential thrash metal releases. Later albums including Terrible Certainty, Extreme Aggression and Coma of Souls also receive critical acclaim. The band signs to Epic Records in 1988, making it one of the earlier European thrash metal bands to join a major label. It does not achieve its widest mainstream success until later releases such as Phantom Antichrist and Gods of Violence, the latter reaching number one in Germany. Kreator has sold more than two million albums worldwide and is counted among the “Big Four” of Teutonic thrash metal alongside Destruction, Sodom and Tankard.

The band helps define and popularise the German thrash metal scene and influences the early development of death metal and black metal in the mid-1980s. Its catalogue spans thrash metal, with related links to death metal, heavy metal, speed metal, hard rock and rock.