★★★☆☆
This is a Slayer album, plain and simple – the type they’ve been releasing for three-and-a-half decades.
So if you know the band, you’ll know exactly what you’re in for. These guys experimented briefly with their sound in the ’90s, but apart from that, they never mess with the formula.
Slayer pretty much invented thrash metal – or maybe co-invented it with Metallica – in the early ’80s. And what that means is fast, pounding, violent songs, with some grooves thrown in for good measure.
Vocalist Tom Araya howls and screeches about war, blood, death, violence, hatred and serial killers. He’s not glorifying or celebrating those things, and not condemning them either. Rather, he’s just reflecting on the fact they exist in our society.
While other old-school bands have had their edge blunted by the passage of time and bulging bank balances, these Californian masters have lost little of their fire and intensity.
They still slam out their relatively simple thrash metal with great vengeance and anger, and their legions of fans love them for their consistency.
Slayer’sRepentlessis out now on Nuclear Blast.
