Pleasure to Kill

Pleasure to Kill was produced by Harris Johns, who had previously worked with bands such as Helloween. Vocalist-guitarist Mille Petrozza said: "The situation was better than on the first album. The producer for that one, Horst Müller, wasn't interested in us. Even when we fucked up, he said, 'Yeah, it's fine!' [...] Basically, [Johns] made a good recording and he made us perform the songs in multiple takes. We had two weeks to do it, with three or four days for the drums and overdubs. It was really professional." == Music and lyrics ==

Musical influences on Pleasure to Kill include Hirax, Sepultura, Possessed, and Death. Vocalist-guitarist Mille Petrozza recalled the creative process: "We were young kids full of enthusiasm. Kids who wanted to sound like the bands they listened to. We were tape traders: we’d listen to all kinds of stuff from the metal underground – We just wanted to be part of that scene, and when I listen to Pleasure To Kill now, that’s what I hear." The lyrical themes follow those found on their first album Endless Pain, containing descriptions of macabre scenes of death and horror. Just like that album, Kreator were a three-piece band during the recording of Pleasure to Kill; on some early pressings, guitarist Michael Wulf, who was briefly a member of Kreator, was erroneously credited as a band member in the liner notes. == Reception and legacy ==

Pleasure to Kill is widely considered a landmark thrash metal classic, along with Master of Puppets by Metallica, ''Peace Sells... but Who's Buying? by Megadeth, Reign in Blood by Slayer, Eternal Devastation by Destruction and Darkness Descends by Dark Angel, all released in 1986. The album played a considerable role in the development of many extreme metal subgenres, and death metal bands such as Cannibal Corpse cite the album as an influence. Mille Petrozza said: "Those kids are influenced by what we’ve done in the past, but it’s all great! If they’re discovering what we did 20 years ago, it’s like a manifesto for what this whole scene is about. Metal should be about saying, ‘Fuck you and everybody else – I’m going to do my thing!" In the German Netflix series Dark'', character Ulrich Nielsen is a fan of Kreator as a teenager, the lyric My only aim is to take many lives / The more, the better I feel from the title track "Pleasure to Kill" leading police officer Egon Tiedemann to suspect Ulrich may be a Satanist. In 2025, Joel McIver of Metal Hammer said the album "proved that America didn't have the monopoly on thrash." == Commercial performance ==

Coinciding with the 2017 remastered issue, Pleasure to Kill charted for the first time 31 years after its release, and peaked at number 99 on the German album charts. The remastered edition of the band's 1989 album Extreme Aggression charted on the same day. Accolades Pleasure to Kill was ranked at number four on Loudwires top ten list of "Thrash Albums NOT Released by the Big 4". == In popular culture ==

The song "Awakening of the Gods" appeared in the video game Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned in the radio station Liberty City Hardcore. The album's material has also made appearances in the Netflix series Dark. ==Track listings==

;Kreator • Mille Petrozza – guitars, vocals (2, 4, 6, 7, 9) • Rob Fioretti – bass • Ventor – drums, vocals (3, 5, 8) ;Additional musicians • Michael Wulf – guitars (credited but not played) ;Production • Harris Johns – production, engineering • Ralf Hubert – production • Maren Layout – design • Fred Baumgart, Kreator – photography • Phil Lawvere – cover artwork • Mille Petrozza – remastering • Karl-Ulrich Walterbach – executive production ;2017 re-release • Andy Pearce, Matt Wortham – mastering • Thomas Ewerhard, Jan Meininghaus – art, design • Malcolm Dome – sleeve notes == Charts ==