Kreator start the album as they mean to go on with the ferocious title track – a pounding headbanger of a song with a big chugging riff and lyrics that spew forth the current desolate state of affairs our planet is in – it’s sure to be packing metal club dancefloors very soon. Lyrically, Kreator have always had a bit more about them than most thrash bands and the album continues with more tales of desperation and hate (hey, it may sound depressing but it’s what Kreator do best and they do it very well) in the form of more soon to be anthems such as ‘Warcurse’, ‘Escalation’ and ‘Amok Run’. What is clear by now (apart from the album’s lyrical theme of course) is that Kreator are concentrating on heads-down, straight-forward, no-nonsense thrash metal – drummer Jurgen ‘Ventor’ Reil is up there with the Lombardo’s of this world, every song has memorable riffs that you’ll be humming for days on end and almost gang-vocal, shout-along choruses that are likely to take the form of war chants at the band’s upcoming gigs.

Sounding somewhat more polished in its production than their ‘classic’ albums, ‘Hordes of Chaos’ actually benefits from this approach and to prove that the old-guard are capable of taking influences from what’s currently around them, just listen to the modern sound of ‘Radical Resistance’ and ‘To The Afterborn’ and its hard not to think of Trivium but with a much better vocalist. The album finishes off with the trilogy of the aforementioned ‘To The Afterborn’ along with ‘Corpses of Liberty’ and ‘Demon Prince’ which Petrozza considers a warning to the next generation: “Everybody has to go their own path in life and should try not to buy into the propaganda lies that governments feed us” he says, fairly prophetically – and its hard not to admit that he does have a point. In unsettling times, there’s something comforting about a band who fully embrace what they do and have no shame in remaining consistent and though many people would no doubt think of Slayer in these terms, they themselves will have to pull out something special this year to top ‘Hordes of Chaos’ – this may well be the thrash album of the year and it’s only January.