The almighty Lords of Thrash have returned with their eleventh studio album and waste no time making love to the listeners skull with one of the most utterly apocalyptic sounding heavy metal recordings that this reviewer has heard in at least a decade. As much as I liked Christ Illusion (and that killer video for “Eyes Of The Insane”), this effort simply blows it away by a country mile… and then some.
Kicking off with the title track, “World Painted Blood”, Dave Lombardo looks to have sent a loud message to the heavy music scene with one classic blast beat-adrenalized drumming performance to rule them all. Araya sounds like he ate a serial killer for breakfast here, yelling in prophetic agony: “The apocalypse begins, Pain becomes the norm.”
Even Kerry King’s highly improvised ‘tribute’ guitar solo to Dimebag Darrell on this track – while not very technical at all – simply makes your skin crawl.
Kudos to producer Greg Fidelman and Exec. Producer Rick Rubin for letting these guys just do their thing and not flowering it up with some “Pop” minded ray of sunshine so they can sell more units for their own resume. You won’t hear anything slightly commercial that happens throughout all eleven tracks.
My personal favorites are track six’s “Public Display of Dismemberment” and number seven’s thoroughly neck breaking “Human Strain”, the latter being perhaps the best Slayer tune ever written. The riff work from Jeff Hanneman (who gets a co-write credit) is purely uncanny.
Many critics out there are comparing World Painted Blood to Slayer’s “greatest four albums” (Hell Awaits, Reign in Blood, South of Heaven, and Seasons in the Abyss), but I dare say that this may just be
the legendary act’s finest and most audacious work in whole.
ROCKET REVIEW:
[starreview tpl=16]
SLAYER – “World Painted Blood” (CD)
(American/Sony Music)
1. World Painted Blood
2. Unit 731
3. Snuff
4. Beauty Through Order
5. Hate Worldwide
6. Public Display Of Dismemberment
7. Human Strain
8. Americon
9. Psychopathy Red
10. Playing With Dolls
11. Not Of This God
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