KREATOR To Record New Album In Early 2025

Mille Petrozza has confirmed that KREATOR will enter the studio in early 2025 to begin recording the band's next album.

The 56-year-old German-born musician revealed a timetable for KREATOR's follow-up to 2022's "Hate Über Alles" in an end-of-year message he shared via his social media on Wednesday (December 27). He wrote: "Hordes!

"I want to take some time to reflect on 2023. It has been an amazing year for KREATOR. We've played some fantastic shows and were invited to the biggest and best metal festivals on the planet. In a total of 85 concerts, we've visited our friends all over the world. I got super sick in Argentina and Costa Rica, but the fans there carried me through the concert with their energy, even though I had the worst flue one can imagine.

"It's hard to pick a moment from all the magic moments we've created together during this run. You, the fans have been fantastic everywhere! It makes me happy and proud to be a part of the metal community.

"But guess what? 2024 will be even better! We are kicking off the year by bringing Klash Of The Titans to Japan, Australia, India, Indonesia, Thailand, China and we'll visit our fans in Malaysia and Singapore again after many years. We are joined by our friends from @inflames for most of these shows.

"There will be a HUGE announcement for our European Hordes in January. I can't talk about details yet but let me tell you this much: no thrash metal maniac will be disappointed!

"We are also working on another north American tour, plus we plan to record our next record in the beginning of 2025, as I am working on new KREATOR music as we speak!

"There will also be our cinematic documentary coming in 25, created by director Cordula Kablitz Post.

"As this year is coming to an end, I want to thank you for your energy, your support, singing along to our songs at the shows, starting the wildest pits and creating magic wherever we went in 2023.

"The world is in flames, but we are united!

"Peace, Mille Petrozza".

In a recent interview with Australia's Subculture Entertainment, Petrozza spoke about KREATOR's plans for the coming months. He said: "Oh, there's gonna be a big tour in Europe, that we haven't announced yet, for the end of '24. There's gonna be huge festivals that we're gonna play. And we're gonna work on new music. I'm working, at the moment as we speak, I'm working on new music. And there's gonna be a documentary about the band. The director is gonna follow us around the world. I think she's coming to Indonesia and Japan with us, maybe also Australia. We haven't talked about that yet. The documentary will be like a year in the life of KREATOR or something. We'll see how it develops. She's gonna follow us around with the camera. And that's not like a low-budget kind of thing. It's gonna be a cinematic experience. So I'm really excited about that."

Petrozza first mentioned the KREATOR documentary this past October in an interview with Andrew McKaysmith of the "Scars And Guitars" podcast. At the time, he said: "You're the first one I'm telling this [to] — there will be a movie about the band made by a German director. And we will invite some people in the process to do some collaborations with us. And we haven't thought of who we're gonna work with yet, but there might be some obvious and some surprising guests on that album. It might be coming out along with the next KREATOR studio album, which we scheduled for 2025. It will be part of the movie."

Elaborating on what fans can expect from the KREATOR film, Mille said: "It's a documentary. But it will cover — it will basically focus on the present. We'll also take the director with us. She might come to Japan with us on the next tour and maybe even Australia; we haven't decided yet. And some stuff will be shot in Germany, some more like historic stuff. And we'll see. It's gonna be a full-length cinematic experience."

This past May, KREATOR released a music video for the song "Conquer And Destroy" from their acclaimed latest album, "Hate Über Alles". The performance footage was filmed on March 4, 2023 in front of 6,000 of KREATOR's mighty hordes in their spiritual home of Essen.

KREATOR's fifteenth studio album, "Hate Über Alles", was released in June 2022. The follow-up to 2017's "Gods Of Violence" was recorded at Hansa Tonstudio in Berlin, Germany. Helming the sessions was Arthur Rizk, who has previously worked with CAVALERA CONSPIRACY, CODE ORANGE, POWER TRIP and SOULFLY, among others.

The "Hate Über Alles" cover artwork was created by Eliran Kantor, who has previously worked with HATEBREED, SOULFLY, TESTAMENT, ICED EARTH and SODOM, among others.

"Hate Über Alles" marks KREATOR's first album with bassist Frédéric Leclercq, who joined the group in 2019.

In March 2020, KREATOR surprise-released a new single, "666 - World Divided". The song was produced by Andy Sneap and Markus Ganter and was recorded at Hansa Tonstudios.

KREATOR played its first show with Leclercq in October 2019 in Santiago, Chile.

Before joining KREATOR, Leclercq rose to fame with U.K.-based extreme power metallers DRAGONFORCE for whom he handled bass duties from 2005 until August 2019.

Photo credit: Christoph Voy