Slayer being Slayer
Slayer are without a shadow of a doubt one of THE institutions in the Metal world, and with that comes an elevated level of pressure to deliver big when releasing new material. This is the first Slayer album written and recorded since the sad passing of the phenomenal Jeff Hanneman, so that in itself must have presented a unique challenge during recording. And with Dave Lombardo also departing the band for the second time, this new line up of Araya, King, Holt and Bostaph needed to come out swinging in order to make sure they delivered an album to sit alongside the excellent Slayer back catalogue. When the opening notes of the sadistic sounding Delusions Of Saviour rip through your speakers the excitement will hit fever pitch, but as the album progresses you will find your attention and focus waning, trying to fight the temptation to just throw on one of Slayer's old classics.
Now with all of the bands from Slayer’s generation, mainly looking at their Big 4 counterparts here, without even giving the album a spin people will unfairly begin comparing it to the old material. Repentless clearly doesn’t come even close to the likes of Reign In Blood or South Of Heaven and to be honest nothing they write from now on ever will. This is because, to put it frankly, this isn’t a young band full of fire and vigour anymore - the ominous Slayer sound is here of course, but it is all very much ‘Slayer By Numbers’.
There are moments when the Thrash chaos bounces through and you'll bang your head and think "here we go", but across the album it is the slower and far heavier tracks which sees them excel. They are the Kings of Thrash, of course they are, but this is Slayer in 2015 and Slayer in 2015 fare better writing brooding, dark and menacing heavy tracks - When The Stillness Comes and sections of Implode being the prime examples. Other highlights across the album include the title track and Chasing Death but for every killer track on here we’ve got a whole lot of filler. The tracks can’t really be considered long at all, with most averaging around four or five minutes, but they just feel long. You’re exhausted by the end of the album, and not in a good way. Much like Christ Illusion and World Painted Blood before it, Repentless is a good album and does have its moments, but overall it is difficult to ignore the glaring fact that this is just a very average Slayer album.