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.[1]
In a contemporary review, Oliver Klemm of the German Metal Hammer called Kreator "the best death metal band in Europe after Celtic Frost" and described the album as obviously inspired by Possessed's Seven Churches, but "even louder, even faster, even more brutal".[10]Rock Hard reviewer found the album very similar to Endless Pain and, despite the opaque drum sound, quite good by hardcore standards.[11]
In a modern review, AllMusic writer Jason Anderson wrote that "many in the underground metal scene were already paying special attention to the German outfit's proto-death sound, but the cult status was shed after this critically and commercially successful second effort hit record-store shelves. As fierce and unyielding as the group's debut, Endless Pain, was, Pleasure to Kill provides double the sonic carnage and superior material."[8] Canadian journalist Martin Popoff acknowledged the importance of the album in "propelling the band into the trinity of the genre next to Destruction and Sodom", but was not very pleased by the "tech-thrash ugliness" of the music.[9]
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.[12]
Accolades
Pleasure to Kill was ranked at number four on Loudwire's top ten list of "Thrash Albums NOT Released by the Big 4".[13]
Legacy
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.
Pleasure To Kill had impact on the extreme metal scenes to follow. Petrozza told author Jon Wiederhorn in 2010, “And yeah, it probably is one of the essential records for the death metal movement. A lot of black metal bands even say that Pleasure to Kill is one of their main influences.”[14]
