(1985), in just ten days. The band hired the late Sodom guitarist Michael Wulf for the album's tour to play lead, while Petrozza switched to rhythm guitar. Wulf was in the band for a few days but never on the band's second album, Pleasure to Kill (1986), which is widely considered a thrash classic and a big influence on the death metal genre. It would not be until 31 years after its release that Pleasure to Kill entered the German album charts. Produced by Harris Johns (Sodom, Helloween, Voivod), the album showed the band growing in talent and technical ability. The song "Flag of Hate" became a concert standard, and the band became one of the most promising up-and-coming European metal acts. The band started their first tour ever (before the release of Pleasure to Kill, they had only played five gigs total); they played their first shows outside of Germany in the fall of 1986, supporting bands like Destruction and Celtic Frost, and in the spring of 1987, they toured the US for the first time, opening for Voivod on their Killing Technology tour. Kreator's first EP, Flag of Hate, was also released in 1986, and around this time, Jörg "Tritze" Trzebiatowski had joined the band. Rising popularity (1987–1991) In 1987, Kreator released their third studio album, Terrible Certainty, which is often considered a high-quality Kreator album as the arrangements on the album were more complex and the tempos more varied. The album featured another hit "Behind the Mirror", and the band's popularity continued to grow and a video for "Toxic Trace" received airplay on MTV. They managed to find enough time and money (coming from the concerts) to finance another EP, Out of the Dark... Into the Light. By this point, Kreator had already graduated to headlining their own tours, as well as playing at theaters and arenas with bands such as Megadeth, Voivod, Overkill, D.R.I. and Holy Terror. Berlin based independent record label Noise Records licensed Kreator for the territories outside of Europe and Japan to the major label Epic Records in 1988. Their fourth studio album and debut with Epic (for limited territories) Extreme Aggression, recorded in Los Angeles, became a metal hit in Europe upon its release in 1989; however, the album would not enter the German album charts until 28 years after its release. Continuing the Terrible Certainty formula while showing the band still