SWEET FUCKING SATAN; SLAYER IS STILL AROUND
REVIEWED BY RESIDENT METALHEAD; SCUMBAG
Sweet fucking Satan, Slayer are still around and putting out albums. Do you realize how unlikely that is? The band has managed to maintain all the original members (who are in their mid-40’s) to come around to their eleventh studio album to date. First off, let me start by saying that not only is that completely ridiculous, but it’s inspiring to boot. These guys have been riding the low E string at mach speed and singing about the dark lord since the early 80’s and only recently have they talked about slowing down. Not that they ever will. Slayer never slow down, they only speed up. This is pretty much a metaphor for the entire new album “World Painted Blood”. Pushing 50 and showing grey hairs (or no hair), the masters of thrash are here yet again to remind the world that you can still be intimidating and wear leather pants and spiked wrist bands when your favorite TV show is “Matlock”.
The album itself is what we have all come to expect from Slayer. Fast, loud, and offensive. The first thing I noticed on the album was the somewhat shoddy production quality. The album was produced by Greg Fidelman, who has handled some of Slayer’s material in the past, so I’m somewhat surprised that they all of sudden switched to garage band mode on this outing. I’m not sure what the hell they were taking when they decided on the guitar tone, but fuck is it ever terrible. I’ve never in my life heard such minimal distortion on a thrash record. It’s not like Slayer should ever be aiming for clarity on the 30,000 notes they play per song anyway. The reason this really pisses me off, is it exposes Kerry King (not like all of us didn’t already know) for the god awful guitar player that he is. I’m not sure he ever really learned how to play the instrument, and he’s been playing the same “play as many random non-scale oriented notes and whammy bar the shit out of it” solo since day 1. That being said, it’s Slayer and probably wouldn’t be the same if he ever changed it.
The song quality on the other hand is about as good as any new thrash band these days . It’s what we have come to love about the genre over the past 30 years. I’m not sure why they decided to go a little political over the past few years, I’m pretty sure that’s Megadeth’s gig. I wish Slayer would just stick to being Slayer and write about Slayer things. As far as I can tell, the highlight tracks on this one include “Americon” and “Snuff”. However, trying to pick out highlight tracks on a Slayer record is just like trying to pick a favorite French fry out of your happy meal. It doesn’t really matter which one you pick, it’ll have the same effect in the end. Which really isn’t bad when you think about it, AC/DC has been getting away with it since the 70’s, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
All in the all, hardcore Slayer fans will dig it, as expected. Most normal people will hate it, as always, and Dave Lombardo is still the greatest drummer ever to grace the metal genre and the kids in the new metal bands should sit down and take a lesson because the man is putting on a fucking clinic, again. I think my co-worker put it best today, as he entered the receiving room at work while I was listening to the album: “Jesus Christ. That drummer is going ballistic. He must be a robot built for beating the skins or something”. A robot indeed. In my own humble opinion, I can’t bring myself to not like a Slayer record. The band has done nothing but treat me good over the years and never sway from their path of thrashing destruction, and I will surely be head banging at breakneck speed over the next month while I enjoy their newest offering.
Oh, and just to be safe:
“SLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRR!!!!!!”
