Slayer

My friend and I created a Facebook page with the sole purpose of arguing about metal/rock albums. We both listen to the same album and give it a rating and review. Check it out here if you want to tell me my opinions suck or that the other guy is a sheep or even recommend an album or band to be reviewed: https://www.facebook.com/KnickMacRock

Anyway, he made me listen to the "golden trilogy" of Slayer albums - Reign in Blood, South of Heaven, and Seasons in the Abyss. Now, I don't like Slayer. I don't like hardcore thrash. If I had to list the Big Four from my favorite to least favorite, it would look like this: Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, ...........Slayer. You may notice that the more thrash they are, the less I enjoy them. Now, that said, I think South of Heaven and Seasons in the Abyss have some great songs. Reign in Blood has two great songs. However, all three albums have an endless amount of filler and poorly written material, RIB in particular.

I truly don't understand the love for Slayer. I get the enjoyment of Slayer, it's fast and heavy and a release for aggression. But musically, I don't get it. Fans who defend Slayer's music as brilliant, I don't get it. Most of all, I've spoken with numerous metal fans who list Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman as two of the best guitarists in all of heavy metal, in league with the likes of Smith-Murray, Tipton-Downing, or even Hetfield-Hammett, and I. Don't. Get. It. Sure, they helped invent the most aggressive, fastest side of the thrash genre, but literally every solo is off-key noise and whammy masturbation and virtually every riff is the same low E chug with a 2-3 note turnaround at the end of the measure.

My question to the Slayer fans out there: does their post-Seasons in the Abyss material continue to experiment with the more riff-based approach used on SOH/SITA, or is it full of thrash filler with tuneless vocals and over-stuffed, unedited lyrics a la RIB?
 
I don't understand what you mean by poorly written material. Reign In Blood is short and to the point because they wanted it to be. They specifically wrote shorter songs with 2-3 riffs and less repetition because they didn't like how other bands did it all the time.

I don't think Kerry and Jeff are great guitarists. Kerry is a good songwriter, but Jeff wrote majority of their best songs. I also don't mind the solos, I think that most of the time they are really catchy and fun. Plus Kerry always nails all of his solos live.

Slayer's lyrics are also up for debate. Kerry is all "FUCK JESUS, FUCK RELIGION, FUCK EVERYTHING" while Araya and Hanneman are more thoughtful with their lyrics. Just by taking a look at the credits, I can see that the bullshit lyrics are 100% King and the more interesting stuff is Araya/Hanneman or both of them.
 
Night Prowler said:
I don't understand what you mean by poorly written material. Reign In Blood is short and to the point because they wanted it to be. They specifically wrote shorter songs with 2-3 riffs and less repetition because they didn't like how other bands did it all the time.

I don't think Kerry and Jeff are great guitarists. Kerry is a good songwriter, but Jeff wrote majority of their best songs. I also don't mind the solos, I think that most of the time they are really catchy and fun. Plus Kerry always nails all of his solos live.

Slayer's lyrics are also up for debate. Kerry is all "FUCK JESUS, FUCK RELIGION, FUCK EVERYTHING" while Araya and Hanneman are more thoughtful with their lyrics. Just by taking a look at the credits, I can see that the bullshit lyrics are 100% King and the more interesting stuff is Araya/Hanneman or both of them.
Click to expand...

I guess my problem re: "poorly written" is the repetition between songs. Sure, each track might only have 2-3 parts and then, boom, it's over, but the following song will have a part that sounds virtually identical to something I just heard. Maybe the tempo has changed slightly, maybe the riff starts over at a slightly different place, but it's all very similar. To be fair, this is my contention with most thrash music in general and not just Slayer. I have the same issue with punk.

As for the solos, I find nothing catchy about them. I suppose they fit the style of music, but I hear no structure, melody, or catchiness in any solo played by either guitarist (save for maybe 1 or 2 tracks on SITA).

I've found that the majority of songs I like are written by Jeff. The songwriting, to me, gets much better on Seasons in the Abyss, once every song stops trying to shock the religious community and simply focuses on the horror and violence of human nature or war.
 
Maybe you should try "Diabolus in Musica". It's the most "melodic" of all Slayer albums post-Seasons. I consider myself a fan of theirs, but I understand your concern. Some songs are really chaotic, with very poor vocal melodies. But, to me, these songs are overshadowed by the great ones, with fantastic riffs, great vocal melodies and incredibly powerful drum patterns. Their catalogue have much more variety that you seem to think. I think that, as songwriters, they have already given their best, but live, as far as I'm concerned, they are only second to Maiden themselves.
 
I find Reign of Blood a very different album from South of Heaven. The latter is the only album that I fully enjoy as a whole. Lots of cool drum patterns and breaks(!) well thought songcrafting, with unexpected moments. Not just hit the gas 100%. I'll never forget having read King saying that it was the only (or first?) album where they really took the time to write a lot before going in the studio. An intelligent album with lots of kick ass moments.
 
Gary Holt on the new album:
Gary also spoke about his contribution to the recording process, explaining: "I got the call [to go down to the studio] and I went down to do solos and I did nine leads in one day and I went home. Everybody was, like, 'Damn, that was crazy,' and what I did was I blew my left wrist out. I was shredding so long and hard and I just wanted to get through them. I felt some pain halfway through it, and I just kept going, and the next day I couldn't even move my hand."

Holt added: "Kerry asked me if I wanted to revisit any of them this week and go down and do any more tracking, and I hadn't listened to the leads since a couple days after I did them, which was probably a while ago. I listened back to them, not even remembering what I did, and I was just shredding, man. [So I'm] not even gonna mess with them."
Click to expand...
Looking forward to his solos. I enjoyed his leads a lot @ FortaRock.
 
Hadn't heard from Thomen "The Omen" Stauch in 10 years or more. I am glad to know he is action again, though. In any band.
 
What's his connection to Slayer? :P But yeah, it's been 10 years since his last album afaik:


(IMO better album than anything Blind Guardian did since Nightfall. Only Sacred Worlds and maybe This Will Never End beat this song.)
 
I've loved this band for most of my life. They're music just never gets old to me. I think they've been pretty consistent with their albums too. Took me a couple of listens to warm up to christ illusion and world painted blood, but I really like those albums. ANd yeah I know diabolus album, but even that I can appreciate.
 
Cool NP. I like this sort of heavy retro synth. Do yourself a favor and check out the group GosT and the Behemoth album. Very metal, even if it's not actually metal :D

Edit: Full album (You need to "get past" the first song or so before it starts getting very heavy)

 
I found that very vapid and "Meh"....

1:30 min of pointless intro
Boring slow middle section with Araya speaking on top of it
Run of the mill Slayer fast section at the end...

ZzZz
 
Sounds like a mellow South of Heaven outtake. Decently listenable, but... eh.
 
Official new Slayer track "When The Stillness Comes" from Record Store Day 7" Vinyl.

So just a song for this one yearly event (?!)...At least it makes it more acceptable then. I was fearing it was from a new album.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top