Review by Felix on November 6, 2026.

Those of us who are less fortunate are familiar with works such as “Endorama”, “Disco Destroyer” or “Taken By The Throat”. Not to mention “The Least Successful Cannonball”, if I see things right. In a kind of collective confusion, German thrashers lost their compass – or they were in a state of coma. Exumer made a little break, only 25 years, from 1987 to 2012. This was their tactic to keep the fingers away from shitty experiments, and the result is that today their discography shines with a high degree of homogeneity. This is cool, although they are almost painfully loyal to themselves sometimes.

You know what I mean as soon as you have heard the first riff of the opening title track. This staccato approach, which makes the guitar almost sound like a second snare, has become a trademark of the band, and I guess I must check whether this riff is exactly the same as one of their previous albums. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. All songs on Death Mask Messiah run in the vein of Hostile Defiance, and the tracks of this album followed the style of The Raging Tides exactly. I would like to speak about stagnation, but this word suffers from a negative connotation, and stupid me still enjoys the music of the quintet. Admittedly, their narrow-mindedness is at the expense of dynamics. Where every song is raging like an apocalyptic bloodbath, nuances, differences, and verve are lost to some extent. However, an uncompromising dose of thrash is still a good thing, even if its biggest surprise is a cover song where the original lead vocalist is involved. (Right now, it’s your turn to ask “Eh, what?”). Doubtlessly, 'Unchained Angel' is a good song (but 'Abstract Reality' is much better), and Nasty Ronnie is an ever-welcome guest. Nevertheless, this kind of cooperation does not make much sense to me.

As said before, the ten regular tracks of the album kick the listener in the teeth again and again. Only a very small number of pieces allow some room to breathe. One of them is 'Eradication' with a dominating mid-tempo and a nearly melodic solo. It follows directly after 'Sin Bleeder', the strongest track of the opening trio. This song is not only fast, but it also holds some catchy moments (bridge and chorus). But apart from the quality of the single tracks, the precision and clarity of the individual contributions are always amazing. All guys act with surgical precision, and the fact that Ventor’s son sits behind the drum kit gives me hope for the future of Kreator. Maybe Jerome Reil can give his father the right impulse to get the listing flagship back on course. But I’m afraid Captain Mille won’t be swayed. In that respect, he’s just like the German Chancellor: simply sticking to the wrong course, and then it’ll all work out (with the ship going down).

Anyway, I wanted to talk about Death Mask Messiah and the headstrong stubbornness of the band, which shimmers through tracks like 'Allocated Savagery'. Thousands of juvenile thrash rookies wish they could capture the energy of the music in the way Exumer do. But some of them do not even find a neck-breaking mid-tempo, while Exumer deliver it with a malicious grin in 'Serpent'. Maybe Mem and Ray are not the youngest dude far and wide anymore. However, don’t think they and their comrades run out of breath – no f**king way! 'Frozen Ground', the tenth track, explodes as angry and ferocious as the nine previous numbers. So yes, Death Mask Messiah sounds a bit one-dimensional and its opening title track does not really meet my expectations, but after all, the full-length boasts the charm of a machine gun, and that’s not the worst a thrash album can do.

Rating: 7.8 out of 10