Kreator
Out Of The Dark... Into The Light

After the release of "Terrible Certainty" in 1987, the legendary Miland "Mille" Petrozza and company decided to publish this "Out Of The Dark... Into The Light" in 1988, a decidedly appetizing EP containing two studio-recorded tracks and three live songs from their concert at the Dynamo Club in Eindhoven, Netherlands, on 31/05/1988; the CD version also features three additional live tracks recorded at the same venue, making this EP somewhat of a mini-live album, so to speak.

The two studio tracks are "Impossible To Cure", a violent Thrash with a vaguely Bay Area flavor, especially at the beginning, and a cover of the legendary Raven's "Lambs To The Slaughter", endowed with an overwhelming energy. The other six live tracks are a bit of the cream of what Kreator had composed until then, in a nutshell, their flagship songs: they are the very violent "Terrible Certainty", "Riot Of Violence", "Awakening Of The Gods", "Flag Of Hate" and, surprisingly, two previously unreleased songs as a preview for the audience at the time: the beautiful "Love Us Or Hate Us", which would find a place in the masterpiece "Extreme Aggression" that would be released the following year, and "Behind The Mirror", with a very melancholic acoustic incipit, which would instead be published in a self-titled EP, also in 1989. All of this, of course, performed to perfection and with maximum energy!

Between one song and another, the listener will also be delighted by brief speeches delivered by Mille with his hoarse voice in German (for those who do not understand the German language, I recommend going to YouTube: there are videos shot right on that occasion and subtitled in English!); the words of the imperishable Mille when introducing "Love Us Or Hate Us" are beautiful, where the singer launches a verbal attack on all those who make music only for money, conforming to the mainstream, thus betraying art, and decisively concluding with: "Das ist totale Scheisse!!", or: "This is total sh**!!" (it's amusing that on YouTube these words are subtitled as: "We don't agree with them"!!).

In my opinion, it's a good work, certainly not essential in the career of the German band, but definitely very useful for approaching the music and spirit of the legendary Kreator for those who do not yet know them, as the live section is, in every respect, a brief summa of the best of the group, the pieces one absolutely must know. Recommended to all Thrash lovers who have not yet listened to this fantastic German band.