German/Finnish/French thrash metal veterans KREATOR recently entered Fascination Street Studios in Örebro, Sweden with producer Jens Bogren to begin recording their sixteenth studio album, tentatively due in early 2026. Bogren previously helmed KREATOR‘s “Phantom Antichrist” (2012) and “Gods Of Violence” (2017) LPs.
KREATOR‘s upcoming effort will be the follow-up to 2022’s “Hate Über Alles”, which was recorded at Hansa Tonstudio in Berlin, Germany. Helming the sessions for that LP was Arthur Rizk, who has previously worked with CAVALERA CONSPIRACY, CODE ORANGE, POWER TRIP and SOULFLY, among others.
“Hate Über Alles” marked KREATOR‘s first album with bassist Frédéric Leclercq, who joined the group in 2019.
In a new interview with Loaded Radio, Leclercq stated about KREATOR‘s upcoming music (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): ”We are putting the final touches to a new album that will be released sometime next year, I guess. I spent two months away — I was in Germany [working with the band on the songs] and then in Sweden.”
Asked what the new KREATOR material is like, Leclercq said: “It’s great. [Laughs] I think everybody agrees to say it’s better than ‘Hate Über Alles’, which was already cool. And that was my first [album] with the band. But I think this one has better songs. I mean, that’s how we feel. I’m just saying it’s gonna be great.”
Regarding what it’s like working with KREATOR founder and leader Mille Petrozza, Leclercq said: “It’s cool. They’re all easy to work with. And Mille comes with the majority of the riffs and the vocals. He works differently than me in a sense that for him the lyrics, that’s what’s important. And from the lyrics will come the riffs and whatnot, and obviously he needs to be able to play the riff while singing. So it’s a different way of building songs. So my job there is just to check guitar, melodies and solo parts and whatnot. That’s what I do. And it’s great, because that was already the case on the first album I did with them, is that I told them, I said… I’m very passionate when it comes to music, and I have a tendency to go, like when I hear something, I’m gonna be, like, ‘Yeah, we should try this,’ and very — not a dictator in that sense, but very [forcefully] giving orders. And they were, like, ‘Oh, no, that’s cool.’ So they actually really trust me on this. So I pick things that they not always notice, and they give me that sort of freedom to arrange a bit, and that’s great.”
He continued: “I love the KREATOR guys. The minute I joined them, it felt like I was part of the family forever. That’s how we feel. And I’m not [just] saying [that], because it sounds like very cliché, but it’s really the truth. I’ve known Mille for a long time, before I joined DRAGONFORCE, actually. I met him in Germany in 2003, I think. So we’ve always been bumping into each other since then, at festivals and whatnot. And when I joined the band, there was no audition. There was me and no one else. I’m the first one they asked, and I said yes. And I learned the songs and I went in the rehearsal room and I was a little shy for a few bars. And then I was, like, ‘That’s cool.’ And I saw everybody smiling and I was just, like, ‘Yeah, that’s it.’ And yeah, yeah, it really felt like I was part of the family forever.”
Frédéric also talked about the upcoming official KREATOR documentary, “Kreator – Hate & Hope”. The 110-minute film, which was directed by Cordula Kablitz-Post, will premiere on July 2 at the 42nd Munich International Film Festival and will receive a theatrical premiere on September 4.
“We have a movie coming out in September because we had a filming team following us the last two years,” Leclercq said. “It started in Wacken [Open Air festival in Wacken, Germany], and then they came with us in the U.S., to Japan, India and whatnot, filming us. And it’s in the cinema in Germany for a start. And we’re trying to see if it happens — I would like that to happen in [my home country of] France as well. So there’s that. So, it’s been busy.”
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.
As previously reported, Mille‘s official German-language autobiography, which he wrote with journalist, author and presenter Torsten Groß, “Your Heaven, My Hell – Mein Leben, Heavy Metal Und Wie Das Alles Passieren Konnte”, will be published on August 28 via Ullstein Verlag. The book is available for pre-order now.
