Luke Casey

In my humble opinion, this is the _definitive_ Kreator record. It came out in 1989. I was a 17 year old high school student in New Zealand, this was by far the most progressive metal album of that year. I had been listening to metal since I was about 10/11 (My Uncle Andy is the drummer in UFO, my parents took me to see him play all the time untiI we moved to NZ in 1985). 'And Justice for All' by Metallica was released the previous year, and while that was also a landmark record, it was a very sonically unusual record which required multiple listens to understand. I can remember sitting in Art Class in High School with friends and we were all asking 'Where's the Bass guitar?" Of course, this was a production style which would become far more normalized with bands like Pantera. I was astounded by the production on 'Extreme Aggression', the drums and guitars sounded amazing for the time, and it encouraged me to check out other records produced by Randy Burns (for example 'The Joke's on you' by California Punk/Thrash band Excel.) Technical Note: This was very much the year of the ADA guitar preamp! The lyrics were also amazing, especially considering that English was not the first language for these German natives. I also loved the album cover, which reminded me of 70's UFO album covers, and was very much a departure for most thrash metal bands of the time, who were obsessed with Skulls and blood! It's fair to say that the two years of 1988 and 1989 were perhaps THE There were so many career defining albums released in the Metal Genre: As well as the aforementioned albums, check out this list of metal CLASSICS released in those two years: Testament-The New Order (1988) Forbidden-Forbidden Evil (1988) Voivod-Dimension Hatross (1988) Wargasm-Why Play Around? (1988) Exodus-Fabulous Disaster (1989) All of these albums are still on regular repeat for me to this day. Great production quality (for the time), great musicianship and most importantly, Great SONGS, all with a definite 'pop' sensibility in the vocal melodies. If you wanted an introduction to the best metal that was happening at the time , much of it from the much vaunted 'Bay Area Thrash' scene (named for the San Francisco Bay Area where bands like Testament and Exodus hailed from) the releases above should definitely be in your wheelhouse.