Devil's Review : Slayer - World Painted Blood

Once upon a time there was a group of thrash bands that jolted the metal community awake with their speed,ferocity,and subject matter. They ruled for a few years but then the Dark times approached and their power was diminished. Younger bands that were influenced by these thrash legends began to emerge and a resurgence of thrash was begun in the millenium. For a time the legends were able to keep pace with their younger counterparts but then age began to show and the creative juices began to slow from a flow to a trickle.

Not a bad a fairy tale eh? Except it's true. I just listened to the new joint "World Painted Blood". It's a good thrash album by Slayer if it hadn't been done before by ..................wait for it............Slayer. What happened to all this talk by Kerry King about improving his playing after Dimebag's death? What happened to the supposed return to the Seasons era? Why is Tom Araya still yelling at us?

Now granted it's only my first listen but first impressions are hard to overcome, especially with something as straight forward as Slayer's music is. If it was complex arrangements I could see going back to pick up on aspects I might have missed, but this is Slayer we're talking about where the longest songs are usually 4 minutes long.

Americon is a catchy tune as Slayer songs go. Beauty through Order is a nice attempt to revisit territory previously seen by tracks like Dead Skin Mask. The Human Strain actually mixes it up pretty well in tempo changes. But the rest are just retreads of filler material from DI to CI. It occurred to me as I was listening to this that Slayer has become like AC/DC and Motorhead. Normally that would be a good thing except both of those bands get the same thing said about them. Same stuff over and over.

Alright I'm getting to be to negative I guess. I'm getting old like these guys are and maybe if this was the first album I'd ever heard I'd be all over it like most knuckleheaded Slayer fans. It's definately more interesting then the last few releases. And there are some riffs that are reminders of the glory days.But even that can be turned into a negative. So far Metallica,Megadeth, and to some extent Slayer have all dipped back into the well to revisit previous material. Why? Continue to show the younger bands why you've had such a following all these years by progressing your sound further. That might be asking too much though because every band has it's limits. And maybe therein is the issue, these guys have already hit their peak and just don't have the ability to move beyond that.