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Old 10-13-2014, 02:54 PM   #1 (permalink)
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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.
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Old 10-14-2014, 05:12 AM   #2 (permalink)
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All right, haters, get ready to hate...

Maximum overload --- Dragonforce --- 2014 (Metal Blade)

Yeah, that's right, I said Dragonforce. You got somethin' to say? Look, it's my journal and I'll review what I want, and you can all say what you like that this band don't belong in Metal Month II, but they're categorised as power metal, and whether you like it or not, they're getting covered. I've never understood the vitriolic hatred and the sneering contempt this band inspires from almost everyone on this forum. I mean, it's not like they don't play fast, hard and heavy, and unless you hate power metal I can't see any reason to put them down. But then, even those who adore power metal seem to keep a special part in their heart where they would like to lock away and torture these guys. I seriously do not get it.

If somebody plays music I enjoy, as long as that music is not sampled or copied from someone else, as long as it's original (unless of course we're talking about a covers or tribute band) then I have nothing against them. I have a feeling this review is going to spark mercurial debate across my journal as member after member tells me, in graphic detail, why they hate Dragonforce and why I should not listen to them, but I don't care. If nothing else, it will inspire comments and controversy, and conversation, which can't be bad. I'd rather have a review spark a debate --- civilised or otherwise --- than have it pass unnoticed and unremarked upon. So do your worst guys: I'm going in!

This is Dragonforce's sixth album, and just to add to the hate factor for some people (cough!) Batlord (cough!) they're joined on vocals by Trivium's Matt Heafy, who sings on three of the tracks. I've already reviewed “Ultra beatdown” and “Inhuman rampage”, and while I would never place them as my favourite metal albums, or claim they were classics or anything, I certainly did not hate them and could see no reason why anyone would. At any rate, we kick off with a squealy guitar solo which brings in vocals from Heafy as “The game” gets going with a lot of progressive metal in it. Okay, the squibby sound effects on the keyboards are already a little annoying. Oddly enough, Dragonforce say this song was inspired by Sepultura and Slayer, but I don't see it.

The importance placed on the speed of the song --- “the fastest we've ever played” --- gives something of an inkling to me as to why these guys get such bad press. I don't know any band who say that. Sure, thrash, death, black and of course speed metal, and much power metal put an emphasis on speed, but that's not the most important aspect of their songwriting, so far as I know. It's just a byproduct of it, and not something to actually be proud of or to strive towards. Bit hollow really. Given that, this is a decent opener with a typical chorus which surely will go down well onstage. Given that, I don't see it as any better or worse than a hundred other power metal songs I've heard. “Tomorrow's kings” at first fools me into thinking I'm listening to Jeff Wayne's “War of the Worlds”, with a very similar sound effect opening it, then explodes into another power rocker with galloping guitars and cannonball drums, a big chorus but in some ways it's sung too fast, and I get the feeling the guys are just trying to get to the end of the song as quickly as possible. I don't hear any passion or sincerity here I must admit. Heafy is back for “No more” ([i]”If only!” shout all the Dragonforce-haters!) and though we're only three tracks in I can see a pattern developing here, with each song sounding quite similar to the others.

It'll be interesting to see if they try a ballad, but so far it's all speed and power, and to be honest I haven't found my old friend the Hook; when I listened to “Through the fire and the flames”, one of their best-known and successful songs, I instantly heard the hook in the melody, but here, no. I don't hear it. The solos of course are fretburning but again there's something missing and the sort of videogame effects on the keys are getting increasingly annoying. Now it slows, which was unexpected, though I don't expect it to last, and a chugging guitar rising in the background presages the resurgence of those breakneck riffs ... and here they come. Again.

Yeah. Well, so far, so meh. “Three hammers” has a nice sort of striding passage to open it, with marching drums, and I wonder if maybe they're going to cut down on the speed a little? Some soft acoustic guitar would seem to add weight to that possibility, and indeed this could even be a ballad. The harder electric guitar is now coming in, but the tempo, while rising slightly, remains relatively slow, compared to the rest of this album so far. Probably not a ballad but not a speed race either. Not too bad. Still, Manowar and Virgin Steele do this sort of thing so much better, and with far more conviction and belief.

Oh well, it was never going to last, was it? Here come the screaming, flaming guitar solos as the song kicks up, and to be fair, they sound quite inappropriate and out of place in this song, as it slows back down again, making it pretty obvious that the solos were pure indulgence on the part of Herman Li and Sam Totman, just written in so they could show off. I've seen it before with Dream Theater, and I never like it. There's an acoustic guitar and gentle vocal to open “Symphony of the night”, but as you would expect by now, it punches up into another heads-down, breathless battle between Totman and Li as each tries to outdo the other. Lordy!

“The sun is dead” has at least some nice ideas in it, and it's not played at Mach II all the time. The solos in it are actually interesting and attractive; see, these guys can play when they stop messing around like kids. This is actually the longest track on the album, so I'm sort of glad it doesn't follow what's rapidly becoming obvious as the standard Dragonforce format. There's a nice bit of organ there near the end, and it's devoid of game effects, so it works much better. If I have to choose a favourite track on the album, I'd doubt there'll be anything to top this. Mind you, there's not been a lot to choose from. But so far, definite standout.

And on we go. I'm rapidly losing interest now. Heafy returns for his final vocal appearance on the frankly awful “Defenders”, another by-the-numbers speedfest with a chorus that tries to sound hard but has no spine, “Extraction zone” the same. Sometimes this is more like playing a video game than listening to music. The speed of this one is pretty ridiculous. The bit in the middle doubly so. If I want to play a video game I'll plug in my Playstation. If I want to play a video game I'll buy a Playstation, then plug it in. “City of gold” is just the same; decent chorus and something of a hook, but I can't imagine myself listening to this again. The album, I mean, not just the song. Of all things, there's a cover of The Man in Black's “Ring of fire” just to finish us off. Why, oh why did they bother? That song is perfect, and they certainly didn't do Cash any favours with this ludicrous attempt at a cover. Not so much walk the line as staggers along blindly. God save us.

TRACKLISTING

1. The game
2. Tomorrow's kings
3. No more
4. Three hammers
5. Symphony of the night
6. The sun is dead
7. Defenders
8. Extraction zone
9. City of gold
10. Ring of fire

You know, I'm beginning to get it. The two albums I reviewed seemed okay, and I found it hard, as I said in the intro, to justify or explain all the hatred for Dragonforce, but it's getting clearer now. On this album, as I said, there's a real sense of everything being done to a plan, a blueprint; every song, with small variations, sounds pretty much the same as the others, with the exception of “The sun is dead”. That song is the one shining jewel, or at least bright spot in an otherwise lacklustre pile of cr --- er, paste. The ability to play faster than everyone else does not make you a better player, guys: you need to have proper melody and heart in your songs. Oh yeah, and you need to sound like you believe (in) what you're singing, not like you're running off a teleprompter, which some of this does.

Sorry, that's not fair. Which most of this does. I was very disappointed overall with the album, and apart from the odd good bit and one decent song I fail to see how these guys are so popular. I'm not going to say I'm signing up right away for the Dragonforce Haters Club, but right at this moment I'm standing outside the recruitment office, looking at the poster and thinking about it.
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Old 10-14-2014, 06:19 AM   #3 (permalink)
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Dragonforce gets hate because they can't write songs. Your average DF song is just a two-dimensional parody of a Stratovarius song without any kind of depth. The only real reason they're popular is because they just sound like a power metal stereotype that appeals to people who don't actually listen to power metal. They're a novelty band and nothing more. For a song or two they're not much more than boring, but an entire album is like an endurance test.
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Old 10-14-2014, 09:07 AM   #4 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by The Batlord View Post
Dragonforce gets hate because they can't write songs. Your average DF song is just a two-dimensional parody of a Stratovarius song without any kind of depth. The only real reason they're popular is because they just sound like a power metal stereotype that appeals to people who don't actually listen to power metal. They're a novelty band and nothing more. For a song or two they're not much more than boring, but an entire album is like an endurance test.
Yeah, I'm finally beginning to see that. Took me a while. Now, where do I sign up?
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Old 10-14-2014, 09:49 AM   #5 (permalink)
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Yeah, I'm finally beginning to see that. Took me a while. Now, where do I sign up?
I'd also like to point out that their solos go on for entirely too long. I used to have Inhuman Rampage, and I actually timed the solos after the second chorus of each song, and they all, ALL, last for at least two minutes. Over two minutes of pointless wank. ****. That.
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There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamiting factories and power-stations; I hope that, encouraged now as ‘patriotism’, may remain a habit! But it won’t do any good, if it is not universal.
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Old 10-14-2014, 01:19 PM   #6 (permalink)
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I'd also like to point out that their solos go on for entirely too long. I used to have Inhuman Rampage, and I actually timed the solos after the second chorus of each song, and they all, ALL, last for at least two minutes. Over two minutes of pointless wank. ****. That.
Amen, brother. And what's with the fucking twiddly keyboard/game noises? That's just wank to the nth degree! Ugh!
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Old 10-14-2014, 02:03 PM   #7 (permalink)
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Amen, brother. And what's with the fucking twiddly keyboard/game noises? That's just wank to the nth degree! Ugh!
Like I said. Novelty. It makes it amusingly kitschy for the power metal tourists.
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Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien
There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamiting factories and power-stations; I hope that, encouraged now as ‘patriotism’, may remain a habit! But it won’t do any good, if it is not universal.
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Old 10-14-2014, 02:06 PM   #8 (permalink)
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Amen, brother. And what's with the fucking twiddly keyboard/game noises? That's just wank to the nth degree! Ugh!
Their lyrics are also hilariously dull, cliched and repetitive. Only Dragonforce can release a serious song titled "Power of the Ninja Sword".
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Old 10-15-2014, 09:36 AM   #9 (permalink)
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Members' Top Ten Lists
One more of your top ten lists to go. Have we saved the best till last? Well, let's see as we explore the top ten provided by

and starting off, as we always do, at number
10

Filosofem --- Burzum --- 1996
A man whose political views, and his propensity for putting those views into action, landed him in prison on a murder charge, I've never heard anything by Varg Vikernes, but this is apparently the last album he recorded before being sentenced to 21 years in prison for the murder of Mayhem's Euryonmous. It's said to be Black Metal with tinges of ambient and minimalism, so at least it should be interesting. It's also only got six tracks, but then again, one of them is --- wait for it --- twenty-five minutes long! --- so essentially it comes out with a running time about as long as, or longer than, many full albums.

As it opens I'd consider this far more doom metal than black, but what do I know? Well, what I do know is that this is nowhere close to as bad as I feared it would be. Sure, the scratchy, screeching vocal is annoying, but ol' Varg doesn't stick to that all the time, and when he reverts to a “normal” voice he's quite listenable. The music, on the other hand, is pretty damn sweet. It's energentic and hypnotic at once, and catchy as all hell. I'm three tracks in and amazed to say I really love this so far, even given the often hard-on-the-ear vocals. Hey, the guy may be a murderer, a bigot, a racist, an antisemite and a dick, but he can certainly compose and play music!

The third track bores me a little but I love the gentle, minimalistic ambience of the first, what, five? No, ten --- no, fifteen minutes (is it all going to be like this? Twenty minutes now) of this twenty-five minute behemoth. Yeah, that's how it is all the way through. What a masterpiece. Right down my particular boulevard! Man I really enjoyed that. It was totally unexpected and very welcome. The closing track is nearly as good. Hell, I just became a Burzum fan! How the hell did that happen???

And so, suitably shaken but not quite stirred, we move on to Mondo's number
9

Mental funeral --- Autopsy --- 1991

Yeah, this looks like fun. I may have prejudged Burzum --- wrongly --- but I feel this is gonna be like having teeth pulled without anaestetic. By a chimp. Wearing a welding helmet. And boxing gloves. In the dark. On a boat on a storm-tossed sea. Ah FUCK! FIFTEEN tracks?? Thanks Mondo! Well to be honest, with titles like “I shit on your grave” and “shit eater” on other albums of theirs, and looking down the tracklist of this one, maybe I've been spared the worst. Also, Wiki says 12 tracks so I'm gonna assume the Spotify version has extra ones which I'll ignore like the girl I am. Twelve is going to be more than enough, going from what I hear here. (Hear, hear!)

Delightful! Another dark growly singer like yer man from Morbid Angel. Guitar work is good though, and it's not all superfast, in fact some of it is almost doom metal slow, like “In the grip of winter” and “Robbing the grave” --- very slowly, it would seem. Oh, I notice a couple of tracks are less than a minute long. Praise be for small mercies! Well again I have to say these guys know how to play, and again at least it's not grindcore. But definitely not my thing. Moving on...

At number
8
we find

Seven chalices --- Teitanblood --- 2009

Which I'll be covering in “The International Language of Metal”, so I'm skipping it, taking us to his number
7

Bath --- Maudlin of the Well --- 2001

This gives me hope, as I see tags such as “progressive”, “avant-garde” and “dark symphonic”. Could be something more in my line, could be a cruel joke. Hmm. Soft gentle opening, keyboards, piano, reverb guitar ... looking good so far. Now as long as nobody comes in kicking and screaming and howling and ruins the atmos I'll be fine. Ooh! Sax! And not wild, uncontrolled, unprotected sax! Nice low-key, soft, lazy, smoky sax, the kind I like. This is just great so far, though at the moment I'd be struggling to call this metal.

Okay, well now I can. And there's the voice I had hoped not to hear. Ruined everything. Like a different band entirely. Sigh. Oh and now some jazzy horns are getting in on the act. Just gets worse for me, doesn't it? Third track is totally different, and knocks me further sideways. If I were listening to this blind I would think two different bands were playing. “The Ferryman” starts off great, on some very proggy organ, then kind of stops for about a minute before coming back in on softer organ, some nice guitar and as yet no vocals ---- oh there they are. And they're dark and growly. Why did I not expect this?

Oh but now there's a soft female vocal too. Look, this album is giving me a headache. Too much variety, and not in a good way like with Sigh. I've just settled down when I'm kicked out of my chair, then someone picks me up and rearranges my cushions, hands me the remote before turning the whole thing over again! I'm knackered! And we're not even halfway through! Generally I think this album swings between making sweet love to me and then unaccountably and suddenly becoming a homicidal raving bitch. It''s unsettling, y'know? But I think I love it more than I hate it.
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Old 10-15-2014, 09:51 AM   #10 (permalink)
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Following on from their last album and having by now built u a massive following, Slayer decided it was time to pay tribute to the bands who had influenced them, and though this was originally intended to focus on their Heavy Metal idols such as Judas Priest, UFO and Iron Maiden (along with other, perhaps less expected influences such as The Doors), that idea was shelved and they decided instead to go with Punk Rock songs, covering such bands as The Stooges, Minor Threat and Verbal Abuse, as well as Dave Lombardo's previous band, Pap Smear. As a result, the songs are all very short, the only one over four minutes being the closer, which is an original Slayer song. Most of the others hit around the two to three minute mark, with a few struggling to last over one minute! As my dislike for Punk is well known, this could be the biggest test of my mettle as I wade through Slayer's catalogue, but I hope I'm up to it!


Undisputed attitude --- Slayer --- 1996 (American)

As I say, I know virtually nothing of the world of Punk, so I can't tell you if Slayer did a good job on the covers or not, but be that as it may, we get going with the first of three from Verbal Abuse, two of which follow hard on the heels of each other. “Disintegration/Free money” opens with a suitably discordant guitar and a scream from Tom, then as you would expect the song pounds along at near-ridiculous speed, and after one minute there's a little bass run from Tom which I assume marks the border between “Disintegration” and “Free money”, though I don't personally see any difference between the two. “Verbal abuse/Leeches” is next up, and again it's so fast I can't really listen to it or say anything about it, other than it's fast, angry and frenetic. And over quickly, piling from the first to the last with a good guitar riff before the speed somehow increases for “Leeches”. Um.

TSOL are the next to be paid homage, and no I don't know who they are, but the song(s) Slayer choose to cover, “Abolish government/Superficial love” is (are?) at least more listenable than the first two (or four, if you count each as two. Is this normal in punk? Are the songs so short that they have to group two together? Seems to happen a lot of the time. If you know, please enlighten me. On second thoughts, don't bother.) Again a nice bass bit from Araya and the guitar is loud and angry but well played. Two tracks from Pap Smear kick the speed back to to unbelievable again as “Can't stand you” is, well, just indecipherable for the first part, then gets a little more recognisable for the last thirty seconds with some fine axework from the boys, though it speeds up into a blur again at the end and takes us into the shortest track, one minute one second of “DDAMM” which apparently stands for “Drunk Drivers Against Mad Mothers” and which to me is just a mess, the second and thankfully last of the Pap Smear songs.

If any of these songs have a redeeming quality, for me it's that they're so short. Minor Threat's “Guilty of being white” laid Slayer open to accusations of being White Supremacists --- why, I don't know: they didn't write it! But it's not too bad and of the songs on this album so far it's about the best I've heard. Then we have the final Verbal Abuse song, “I hate you”, which actually is not at all bad. At least it runs at a human speed level and the guitar riff on it is pretty cool. I can also make out Tom's vocals, which is always good and helps towards the appreciation of any song. Great solo from Kerry too, the first I've really been able to pin down. But all too soon it's over and we're getting the second cover of a Minor Threat song.

I have to say, compared to “Guilty of being white” this is awful. Played again at hyperspeed and with screamed vocals, “Filler/I don't want to hear it” has at least a scorching solo in it, but at over two minutes it's actually too long, which is not something I thought I'd say about these songs. The first of two from DI doesn't help my aching head as Slayer blast their way through “Spiritual law”, whcih I'm worried to see runs for three whole minutes! At least it settles down a little in the middle, kind of gets a little doom metalish, but of course that doesn't last and it heads for the exit as fast as it came in. “Mr. Freeze” by Dr. Know is next, and compared to the speed of most of the tracks here it's positively laidback! Great riffs and thunderous drumming, with a vocal which again I can hear and make out.

Speeds up near the end of course and takes us into DRI's “Violent pacification”, which typifies everything I hate about Punk, with my admittedly very limited knowledge of the subgenre. Just sounds like noise and someone shouting with pretty much just the title as the only lyric. Well, I hear other words now, and the rhythm has settled a little, but we're halfway though the song now. Nice teamup between the rhythm section, then it all speeds right up again with Araya crowing the title in increasing fervour and speed till the song burns itself out at the end on the back of Kerry and Jeff's manic guitar work. The second DI song is “Richard hung himself”, the longest of the covers, and to be fair it's pretty good. Doesn't speed along like a hurtling comet, has good guitar and I can make out the vocal, which has more than just the title in it. Not bad at all.

That leaves just two tracks to go, one cover and the final one, which is Slayer's own song. For their last tribute they choose The Stooge's “I'm gonna be your god (I wanna be your dog)” and to be fair I can see how these guys had such an influence on metal bands, as this is really more metal than punk to me. Rocks along nicely without breaking the speed limit, decipherable vocals and a great, mesmeric guitar riff. Another one I don't hate. Leaving us with the closer, Slayer's own “Gemini”, which is easily the longest track at almost five minutes. After the frenetic pace of the last thirteen tracks, it's a relief to hear the guys slow everything down in a real doom metal groove that just stomps along with snarly guitar and hollow-sounding drums, a laconic, dark vocal from Tom and some fine backing vocals. I'd like to hear Slayer do more stuff like this, but somehow I don't think I'll get my wish. Still, it's a good and powerful ending to a pretty terrible album.

TRACKLISTING

1. Disintegration/Free money
2. Verbal abuse/Leeches
3. Abolish government/Superficial love
4. Can't stand you
5. Guilty of being white
6. DDAMM
7. I hate you
8. Filler/Don't want to hear it
9. Spiritual law
10. Mr. Freeze
11. Violent pacification
12. Richard hung himself
13. I'm gonna be your god (I wanna be your dog)
14. Gemini

Obviously, before someone gets up in arms, my comments have to be taken in the context of the fact that I don't like Punk. If this were an album of covers of hip-hop songs, or jazz songs (can you imagine?) I would probably hate it too. I'm sure Slayer did a great job on all the songs here, but this sort of music is not my cup of tea and so I guess in most ways I'm badly placed to be reviewing it, but this is one of Slayer's albums and I promised I would try to cover all their recorded studio output if I could, so didn't want to leave this out, even though my blood froze when I realised what it was.

But yeah, so far as I'm concerned, easily and far away the worst Slayer album I've listened to so far and the hardest thing I've had to get through since I suffered through Slipknot's “Iowa” last year.

(Note: this review was written before I was dragged through the living hell inhabited by Cryptopsy and their grindcore buddies, especially the Japanese ones...)
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