Kreator – Endless Pain

Mine inner sleeve seems to be misprinted as lacks band photo

Endless Pain is a brave spirit multiplied by enthusiasm and zeal to play as fast and loud as possible. Of course, many people picked up a guitar at the age of seventeen and screamed into the microphone with all their might, but few people were able to make a really great musical career out of it. Kreator was really able to do it. And it is after decades of hard work, recordings and endless tours that we see this cool retrospective series of reissues.

During the preparation of the release, a lot of work was done both in of sound (it is excellent) and in of creating a single design for the series. In of sound, the remastered version has DR11, while the original mastering is DR13 (with a peak DR value of 14 for individual tracks). But this vinyl sounds good - natural, loud, accented, keeping the raw character of the original recording. Of course, if you had the original vinyl in 1985, then any remastering would be an absolute evil for you. But for this album, the soul is not lost. As for the bonus vinyl, it's pure nostalgia, maybe someone will be curious for a one-time listening, but it's unlikely that you will put it on repeat. The bonus LP has DR10 and there is clearly a digital restoration of very ancient tapes. The Blitzkrieg demo is "a treat" for the die hard fans, the End of the World demo is more like what the band has become. The quality of the vinyl is not bad, although in my copy both records are slightly warped, the playback quality is perfectly clean.

The design is luxurious. Personally, I am not confused by the presence of an additional mark "remaster" and a change in the tone of the cover. At the moment, I have five classic albums from 1985 to 1990 in my collection, this is a very complete archive, which is fascinating in of the quality and quantity of archival materials. The only disadvantage of this edition is the lack of protective envelopes for vinyls. The printed envelopes may be damn beautiful, but they leave smudges and stains on the new black vinyl. It would be ideal if the design of the envelope layouts were used exactly as a booklet, but there is something there... If you were lucky enough to live in the era before the Internet and get information, for example, from magazines or fanzines, then any note about your favorite band or a new photo was important. This is a particularly tactile edition, it is incredibly pleasant to hold in your hands and very interesting to study both while listening to the album and as a separate independent printed material. I don't know what kind of fucking idiots write that they "don't recommend this press". This is a press that is recommended to everyone for the objectively high quality of its preparation and presentation.

The cover art is disastrous, I don't understand why they don't include the original art.
In the equivalent edition on CD at least it includes the original art inside, on the vinyl it is not
I don't recommend it.

There seem to be variations of the inner sleeve besides the described one with the blank back! mine has arc cut upper corners and some different record ads on the back! will pic!

Still one of the best mid-80s metal albums. The were still "teenagers" in 1985, imagine! Album also features some really great (1st wave) black metal tracks (obviously heavily inspired by Bathory). 10/10

Somewhat overcompressed dynamic range, but guitar and vocals sound good. Good liner notes and pictures. Demos are basically the worst sound quality one could imagine, but okay for historical value.

This version sounds muffled, but dynamic range is preserved. Dull sound quality.

Totally overcompressed version, which means that one can get hearing damage from turning the volume up. Guitar and percussion sound clear, more than the vocals. The dynamic range is too fatiguing.

Raw, primitive,bad produced and great.... simply to say.
This is not yet Kreator that will be known on later releases.They still searching for their own sound on this debut but you can hear something special from the band.
Storm of the beast, Flag of hate and Endless pain are highlights for me.
Unfortunately two demos included are both very bad quality.

My copy includes a mersh postcard writen in deutsch. Don't know if someone got a copy with this mersh postcard too....