In an era where big gigs are becoming both more frequent and more expensive, bands need to bring more spectacle than ever to stand out. It would have been easy for Kreator<\/a>, who formed 45 years as a grubby gang of teenage thrashers<\/a>, to get lost in the shuffle, given how overloaded their scene is with veteran artists playing at academy level. But the Essen aggressors have instead risen to the challenge, as telegraphed by the enormous four-band bill they\u2019ve brought on their European tour and all the interviews mainman Mille Petrozza has given promising their biggest production to date.<\/p>\n The recently reunited NAILS are masters of powerviolence, and their opening set proves that they deserve that brutal genre tag. The trio tear through 90-second onslaught after 90-second onslaught, unloading 13 songs in just under half an hour. Even though O2 Academy Brixton has an annoyingly strict \u2018don\u2019t encourage a moshpit\u2019 rule, this lot don\u2019t suffer for it, with the floor quickly opening up into an incorrigible maelstrom. Singer\/guitarist Todd Jones is clearly impressed as he steps off of the stage.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n EXODUS keep the aggression alive, their catalogue of Bay Area ragers as intense as a terrier on coke. Bonded By Blood, The Toxic Waltz and A Lesson In Violence are all proven pit-starters that continue to do their job, though tonight they come with a deeper rumble than usual thanks to the baritone bellow of returning frontman Rob Dukes. The cuts from divisive new album Goliath, especially the plodding title track, dent the momentum, but it\u2019s nothing that a closing Strike Of The Beast doesn\u2019t remedy.<\/p>\n CARCASS practically defined melodic death metal, their 1993 masterstroke Heartwork<\/a> casting slicing, 80s-inspired lead guitars against foul and abrasive extremity. Songs like No Love Lost and the album\u2019s title track are as invigorating today as they were back then, as evidenced by all the moshing, scream-alongs and fist-bumping they kick off. Their impact is doubled by the fact that the band are tight as a vice, jumping from one horrific anthem to the next without a second in between. The last note of Unfit For Human Consumption drops into the opening of Buried Dreams as if they\u2019ve always belonged together, and a tease of death\u2019n\u2019roll track Tomorrow Belongs To Nobody\u2019s first riff makes the following technical blitzkrieg of Death Certificate hit like a donkey punch.<\/p>\n KREATOR formed on the gang-laden streets of Western Germany and rehearsed in a disused mine, but tonight they\u2019re closer to Iron Maiden<\/a> pomp than their DIY roots. When the curtain drops for opener Seven Serpents, Brixton sees the four-piece standing in front of a gigantic severed demon\u2019s head with light-up eyes and flanked by two inflatable gargoyles. There are 17 human heads strewn across the stage (yes, we counted), and with the bursts of flame that shoot up from the stage, the scene makes Hieronymus Bosch\u2019s visions of Hell look like a nursery school.<\/p>\n For 85 minutes, the thrashers lob more and more ludicrous shit with abandon. Hate \u00dcber Alles is preceded by two goblins coming out and wielding flares. For Satan Is Real, the entire width of the front of the stage bursts into flame. Then, in the lead-up to Phantom Antichrist, two nine-foot-tall wicker men are wheeled out, only to be ignited when the beat drops. While the band are more often lumped in with Testament<\/a> and Anthrax<\/a> as speed freaks who never quite reached the arena league, tonight they feel ready to rival Parkway Drive<\/a> and Powerwolf in terms of large-scale showmanship.<\/p>\n In between, the setlist doesn\u2019t quite explore every era of the band\u2019s career, but all the hits make the cut. 666 \u2013 World Divided and Violent Revolution show the best of their modern-day melody-making, before Pleasure To Kill, the title track of their 1986 album and a surprising mainstream moment thanks to Netflix\u2019s Dark, ends things in particularly ferocious form. After four decades of thrashing, Kreator seem to be making a long-overdue reach for the big leagues \u2013 and if they keep performing with this much bombast, it\u2019s easy to imagine them getting there.<\/p>\n \n (Image credit: Jake Owens)Kreator setlist: O2 Academy Brixton, London \u2013 March 27, 2026Seven SerpentsHail To The HordesEnemy Of GodSatanic AnarchyHate \u00dcber AllesPeople Of The LieBetrayerKrushers Of The WorldHordes Of Chaos (A Necrologue For The Elite)Satan Is RealLoyal To The GravePhantom AntichristEndless Pain666 \u2013 World DividedViolent RevolutionPleasure To Kill<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You can trust Louder Our experienced team has worked for some of the biggest brands in music. From…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-503511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Frederic](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AjQUhHHz6KdMr6UgcVVaQ3.jpg\")
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