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Trollheart · 10-13-2014, 02:54 PM

In something of a change for Slayer, the next album would not come out for four years. Given that they were perhaps trying to win hardcore fans back this seems a little odd, but then when you listen to the album and hear how lovingly crafted it is, what a masterpiece of sound engineering and songwriting it is, and how Slayer began to really tackle proper world issues, maybe four years was not too long to have to wait.

Divine intervention --- Slayer --- 1994 (American)

If ever the sticker “Parental Advisory” was created for one band, you would have to believe it was for Slayer, and with this sixth album featuring songs about everything from the SS to Jeffrey Dahmer, you can see why some parents --- most parents --- would not want their little precious buying and listening to it. And why all the little preciouses would be eager to do just that. With another powerful guitar intro, “Killing fields” explores the psyche of a serial killer, Araya hoarsely shouting the lyric with all the lack of control of a madman on the hunt for his next kill. New drummer Paul Bostaph adds a sense of fire and anger to proceedings, and King as ever is a master of the frets, his guitar screaming in pain as he racks out the solos. Coming it at a mere one minute fifty seconds, “Sex, murder, art” nevertheless squeezes a lot into its extremely short runtime, managing to reference BDSM --- ”Shackled, my princess/Dangling in distress/Here to discipline” --- fisting --- ”The urge to take my fist/ And violate every orifice” ---imprisonment and enslavement --- ”Caught, now you're mine/ The master of your whipping time!” and their usual healthy disregard/contempt for religion --- ”God is dead/ I'm alive!” Those PA stickers are seeming justified already! The music suits the raw, angry lyrics, pounding, screaming, violating. Heavy stuff.

No real letup then for “Fictional reality”, with a chugalong beat where the guys once again turn their hand to political lyrics, sneering at the notion of government --- ”Consumed democracy returns/ A socialist regime” --- with big, Iommi-style guitar riffs and a growling vocal, and the anger against society hits into overdrive as they pile into “Dittohead”, with one of the fastest vocals I have ever heard! How does he sing that fast? The music matches him as it hurtles along, but of course they can't keep this up forever and in a short time the beat has softened somewhat, settled down into a proper groove as Slayer rail against the leniency of prison sentences --- ”Slap your hand and you'll do no time” --- with the tempo increasing madly again and then spilling over into the title track, which seems to slow things down a touch.

Another long guitar intro and then Tom screams the vocal like a man in pain, which is appropriate as the lyric seems to hark back to “Angel of Death” on the third album, though here it would appear that God Himself is the torturer. Araya screams ”Violated, naked before you I stand/ Shattered shrine of flesh and bone/ God is piercing through my soul!” A machine-gun guitar assault accompanies him, but if pain characterises that song, anger sears through “Circle of beliefs” like a cleansing fire as Slayer return to beat on their old whipping-boy, Jesus and God, decrying the stupidity of those who follow the Christian religion. The tempo is breakneck --- though nothing comes close to at least the first minute or so of “Dittohead”! --- and again, for a song that runs for four and a half minutes it's over pretty quickly as we plunge into the infamous “SS-3”. Another song that would do nothing to dispel the accusations of Nazism, this chronicles the exploits of the SS and Gestapo during Hitler's reign.

Bringing the tempo down somewhat this track blasts along with fire and anger, and of course is open to misinterpretation, but for my money, unless they're singing “Heil Hitler!” (and not ironically) you can't really say someone is a Nazi sympathiser for writing a song about the SS any more than you can accuse the filmakers who wrote screenplays for World War II movies of the same. It's horrible, it's evil, but in the end it's just a lyrical theme for a song. It's not as if Slayer go on stage in Nazi uniforms giving the Hitler salute now is it? The song picks up speed about halfway through, and oddly King's solo seems a little distant --- bad production? --- but the second solo is crisp and pristine. Staying with controversial themes and a real two-fingers to the world of radio airplay, “Serenity in murder”, while probably the slowest song on the album and with a sort of odd droning vocal returns to the subject that opened the album, that of serial killers, while “213” shoots for the moon --- or the gutter, depending on your viewpoint and your intention --- crawling inside the polluted and dark mind of serial killer and cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer.

With a deceptively laidback guitar and a slow rhythm, it's not really that hard to see how Tom Araya sees this as a love song, because in a very twisted, special way it is. But not a love song you'd want anyone singing to you! It gets going with a sort of boogie beat and hard, biting guitars, a yelled vocal recalling the pained one Araya used in the title track, getting more and more manic as the song progresses. It's one of the few Slayer songs I've heard, at least so far, without a solo from Kerry or Jeff. “Mind control” then kicks over the tables, sets fire to them and legs it out the door as the place burns down to the ground and Slayer paint the last daubs of freshly-harvested blood over the ending of the album, proving the only pussies they tolerate reside either side of a woman's legs.

TRACKLISTING

1. Killing fields
2. Sex, murder, art
3. Fictional reality
4. Dittohead
5. Divine intervention
6. Circle of beliefs
7. SS-3
8. Serenity in murder
9. 213
10. Mind control

The speed, power and raw aggression on this album is frightening to behold. Gone are the complicated progressive song structures of the last album, gone too the references to Satan worship and any other fantasy elements. Having spent “Seasons in the abyss” Slayer have looked deep into it, it's looked deep into them, and neither has liked what they see. But a very real and disturbing truth has become apparent, and that is that whatever awaits us beyond the veil, what we suffer here --- and the suffering we cause here --- on Earth makes that pale by comparison. The realities of life, the prejudices, the hatred, the wrongs and the evils, all combine to make us think there can't be anything worse waiting for us than what we've created here ourselves.

All very deep and existential, I hear you say, but Slayer surely don't give a fuck And you're most likely right. They don't. What they will have given a fuck about though is that with “Divine intervention” they came right back on track; the fans flocked back in their droves, even more young men were encouraged to start their own bands, and even more parents hid their faces in their hands in despair at this trash their kids were listening to.

And for them, worse was to come.

10-13-2014, 02:54 PM	#2343 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,996	In something of a change for Slayer, the next album would not come out for four years. Given that they were perhaps trying to win hardcore fans back this seems a little odd, but then when you listen to the album and hear how lovingly crafted it is, what a masterpiece of sound engineering and songwriting it is, and how Slayer began to really tackle proper world issues, maybe four years was not too long to have to wait. Divine intervention --- Slayer --- 1994 (American) If ever the sticker “Parental Advisory” was created for one band, you would have to believe it was for Slayer, and with this sixth album featuring songs about everything from the SS to Jeffrey Dahmer, you can see why some parents --- most parents --- would not want their little precious buying and listening to it. And why all the little preciouses would be eager to do just that. With another powerful guitar intro, “Killing fields” explores the psyche of a serial killer, Araya hoarsely shouting the lyric with all the lack of control of a madman on the hunt for his next kill. New drummer Paul Bostaph adds a sense of fire and anger to proceedings, and King as ever is a master of the frets, his guitar screaming in pain as he racks out the solos. Coming it at a mere one minute fifty seconds, “Sex, murder, art” nevertheless squeezes a lot into its extremely short runtime, managing to reference BDSM --- ”Shackled, my princess/Dangling in distress/Here to discipline” --- fisting --- ”The urge to take my fist/ And violate every orifice” ---imprisonment and enslavement --- ”Caught, now you're mine/ The master of your whipping time!” and their usual healthy disregard/contempt for religion --- ”God is dead/ I'm alive!” Those PA stickers are seeming justified already! The music suits the raw, angry lyrics, pounding, screaming, violating. Heavy stuff. No real letup then for “Fictional reality”, with a chugalong beat where the guys once again turn their hand to political lyrics, sneering at the notion of government --- ”Consumed democracy returns/ A socialist regime” --- with big, Iommi-style guitar riffs and a growling vocal, and the anger against society hits into overdrive as they pile into “Dittohead”, with one of the fastest vocals I have ever heard! How does he sing that fast? The music matches him as it hurtles along, but of course they can't keep this up forever and in a short time the beat has softened somewhat, settled down into a proper groove as Slayer rail against the leniency of prison sentences --- ”Slap your hand and you'll do no time” --- with the tempo increasing madly again and then spilling over into the title track, which seems to slow things down a touch. Another long guitar intro and then Tom screams the vocal like a man in pain, which is appropriate as the lyric seems to hark back to “Angel of Death” on the third album, though here it would appear that God Himself is the torturer. Araya screams ”Violated, naked before you I stand/ Shattered shrine of flesh and bone/ God is piercing through my soul!” A machine-gun guitar assault accompanies him, but if pain characterises that song, anger sears through “Circle of beliefs” like a cleansing fire as Slayer return to beat on their old whipping-boy, Jesus and God, decrying the stupidity of those who follow the Christian religion. The tempo is breakneck --- though nothing comes close to at least the first minute or so of “Dittohead”! --- and again, for a song that runs for four and a half minutes it's over pretty quickly as we plunge into the infamous “SS-3”. Another song that would do nothing to dispel the accusations of Nazism, this chronicles the exploits of the SS and Gestapo during Hitler's reign. Bringing the tempo down somewhat this track blasts along with fire and anger, and of course is open to misinterpretation, but for my money, unless they're singing “Heil Hitler!” (and not ironically) you can't really say someone is a Nazi sympathiser for writing a song about the SS any more than you can accuse the filmakers who wrote screenplays for World War II movies of the same. It's horrible, it's evil, but in the end it's just a lyrical theme for a song. It's not as if Slayer go on stage in Nazi uniforms giving the Hitler salute now is it? The song picks up speed about halfway through, and oddly King's solo seems a little distant --- bad production? --- but the second solo is crisp and pristine. Staying with controversial themes and a real two-fingers to the world of radio airplay, “Serenity in murder”, while probably the slowest song on the album and with a sort of odd droning vocal returns to the subject that opened the album, that of serial killers, while “213” shoots for the moon --- or the gutter, depending on your viewpoint and your intention --- crawling inside the polluted and dark mind of serial killer and cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer. With a deceptively laidback guitar and a slow rhythm, it's not really that hard to see how Tom Araya sees this as a love song, because in a very twisted, special way it is. But not a love song you'd want anyone singing to you! It gets going with a sort of boogie beat and hard, biting guitars, a yelled vocal recalling the pained one Araya used in the title track, getting more and more manic as the song progresses. It's one of the few Slayer songs I've heard, at least so far, without a solo from Kerry or Jeff. “Mind control” then kicks over the tables, sets fire to them and legs it out the door as the place burns down to the ground and Slayer paint the last daubs of freshly-harvested blood over the ending of the album, proving the only pussies they tolerate reside either side of a woman's legs. TRACKLISTING 1. Killing fields 2. Sex, murder, art 3. Fictional reality 4. Dittohead 5. Divine intervention 6. Circle of beliefs 7. SS-3 8. Serenity in murder 9. 213 10. Mind control The speed, power and raw aggression on this album is frightening to behold. Gone are the complicated progressive song structures of the last album, gone too the references to Satan worship and any other fantasy elements. Having spent “Seasons in the abyss” Slayer have looked deep into it, it's looked deep into them, and neither has liked what they see. But a very real and disturbing truth has become apparent, and that is that whatever awaits us beyond the veil, what we suffer here --- and the suffering we cause here --- on Earth makes that pale by comparison. The realities of life, the prejudices, the hatred, the wrongs and the evils, all combine to make us think there can't be anything worse waiting for us than what we've created here ourselves. All very deep and existential, I hear you say, but Slayer surely don't give a fuck And you're most likely right. They don't. What they will have given a fuck about though is that with “Divine intervention” they came right back on track; the fans flocked back in their droves, even more young men were encouraged to start their own bands, and even more parents hid their faces in their hands in despair at this trash their kids were listening to. And for them, worse was to come. __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018