Slayer
Repentless
Nuclear Blast Records
2015
This formation of necessity that still carries the name of Slayer even with half the band there releases its twelfth album the first after the passing of their late guitarist, Jeff Hanneman, here substituted by Exodus main man Gary Holt kind of decently. Paul Bostaph who is a band’s alumnus and originally replaced Dave Lonmbardo with Dette also making a couple of temporary appearances, is back and while he’s a good drummer his playing is not as impressive as his predecessors. This newly assembled line-up releases an album that while doesn’t suck compared to their past albums, it doesn’t manage to threaten the band’s early and more classic output.
At best you get a much drier, a bit more Exodus-induced version of Slayer, that sounds obviously like Slayer with the vocals of Araya and sits OK somewhere in the middle of their post “Seasons” canon of releases probably on par with “God Hates Us All” without impressing too much...
Even its singles “Implode”, “Relentless” and “When the Stillness Comes” are kinda weak and hardly considerable for the status of classics and while “Piano Wire”, the last song on which Hanneman supposedly worked on, demonstrates the wackier side of wickedness, it’s still a far cry from the band’s classic material. “Chasing Death” and “Attrocity Vendor” contain traces and shades of the bands past, ie the latter sounds like a reimagined “Reborn” but they’re still decidedly second rate. With all that has happened to the band, it’s still impressive that they haven’t thrown in the towel and it’s a testament to their tenacity and stubbornness that they are still going on, mind ya quite strongly… but whoever tells you this is a classic is just blowing smoke up your ass. A decent, bounce-back from the brink of extinction, it is but a classic no way…
At best you get a much drier, a bit more Exodus-induced version of Slayer, that sounds obviously like Slayer with the vocals of Araya and sits OK somewhere in the middle of their post “Seasons” canon of releases probably on par with “God Hates Us All” without impressing too much...
Even its singles “Implode”, “Relentless” and “When the Stillness Comes” are kinda weak and hardly considerable for the status of classics and while “Piano Wire”, the last song on which Hanneman supposedly worked on, demonstrates the wackier side of wickedness, it’s still a far cry from the band’s classic material. “Chasing Death” and “Attrocity Vendor” contain traces and shades of the bands past, ie the latter sounds like a reimagined “Reborn” but they’re still decidedly second rate. With all that has happened to the band, it’s still impressive that they haven’t thrown in the towel and it’s a testament to their tenacity and stubbornness that they are still going on, mind ya quite strongly… but whoever tells you this is a classic is just blowing smoke up your ass. A decent, bounce-back from the brink of extinction, it is but a classic no way…