Slayer – Repentless Review

I love Slayer, probably more than you. In my opinion Slayer is one of the top five metal bands the world has ever known, and the band’s first four albums are some of the best metal ever made. If you think differently, thanks for reading and all, but go fuck yourself. I revere Slayer so much that I get pissed when other people talk shit about them. If I were going to fight someone over a band, it would be Slayer. That’s probably not a reasonable or mature attitude for a forty-year-old man, but I guess that’s why the term is “fanboy.” Despite my ardor, I am not deaf to the fact that Slayer’s output for the past twenty-odd years could most generously be called uneven. And so, when evaluating Slayer’s latest album Repentless, I think it’s important to have reasonable expectations.

Repentless is Slayer’s first album since the death of guitarist Jeff Hanneman, the band’s most talented and prolific composer. In essence, and not to diminish the contributions of the other members, Jeff was the heart and soul of the band. His death was an incalculably heavy blow to a band whose songwriting was already in decline. The absence of Dave Lombardo is also a blow, but a lesser one. I’m sure we would all prefer to have Dave in the band, but Paul Bostaph proved himself a worthy replacement in his previous tenure with Slayer. Paul is a little more mechanical sounding and less adventurous than Lombardo, but by any reasonable standard, Bostaph is a damn fine drummer.

So, we have a band that is past its prime, and missing two key members. The odds are obviously stacked against Repentless being anything but a train wreck. In truth, it’s not anywhere close to a great album, but Repentless is better than could be reasonably expected.

Certainly, Repentless gets off to a good start. “Delusions of Saviour” is not a world-beater, as intros go, but it has a catchy theme and it effectively builds tension for “Repentless” to come roaring out of the gate. This track isn’t anything Slayer hasn’t done before, but it has some savage riffs, it’s really fucking fast, and it sounds like Slayer. Throw in some vicious solos from Kerry King and Gary Holt and you’ve got a winner. The next track “Take Control” isn’t quite as blistering, but it still thrashes pretty effectively. After “Take Control,” however, Repentless takes a turn that most fans aren’t going to like.

Kerry King, since the late nineties, has had an affinity for down-tuned, mid-paced chuggers, and there’s a whole passel of them on Repentless. In King’s defense, these are probably some of the best tunes in this style that he’s written, but none of them are great, and regardless, this isn’t what anyone wants from Slayer.

Slayer has excelled at slower-paced songs to be sure: “South of Heaven,” “Seasons in the Abyss,” and “Dead Skin Mask” are all classics, but they are each anchored by a sinister Hanneman melody, and obviously there is none of that to be had on Repentless. To King’s credit, he gives it a shot on “When the Stillness Comes.” There are the seeds of a good track here, but the melody is not nearly as catchy as anything Jeff wrote, and the song is further hobbled by an awkward arrangement that never builds to an appropriate climax.

Most of the rest of the album is collection of memorable bits and pieces, but few tracks that really impress as a whole. The leads are a bright spot. That Holt can solo like a motherfucker will surprise no one, and his contributions are a definite highlight of the album, but even King, whose sloppy, noisy style has been much maligned in recent years, sounds pretty energized here. Tom Araya, as well, turns in an energetic vocal performance, but he is not given much melody to work with, so the result is fairly one-dimensional. Another bright spot is Terry Date’s production which is not particularly flashy, but captures the Slayer sound with a clarity and punch that’s been sorely missing on the band’s last few records. A lowlight is the lyrics, which mostly suck. This is to be expected, as the majority of them seem to bear the mark of Kerry King. King was at his best when he stuck to Satanic, occult and horror themes, which, for the most part, he gave up years ago, and even then, he wasn’t exactly Shakespeare.

Repentless rallies a bit toward the end, with the pair of faster tracks “Atrocity Vendor” and “You Against You.” With lyrics like “Shitty time to make a stand all without a masterplan” and “Cause when you rolled the dice, the house come down on you,” the latter is almost certainly written about Dave Lombardo’s ill-fated power-play that saw him refusing to join the band for an Australian tour, which ultimately led to his dismissal from Slayer. “Pride in Prejudice,” another mid-pace bruiser, unfortunately caps the album with a bit of a clunk.

Many seem to be of the opinion that Slayer should have packed it in after Jeff Hanneman’s death, and the departure of Lombardo further stoked those fires. That Tom and Kerry are somehow obligated to give up their life’s work because Jeff couldn’t put down the goddamned bottle, and Dave is still apparently a bit of a pain in the ass, is, in my opinion, bullshit. If you have the opportunity to play music for a living, presumably a rather decent living, you fucking take it. Maybe Tom and Kerry are just doing this to pad their retirement accounts and put kids through college, but that seems to be motivation enough to make them sound mostly like Slayer, and that’s still worth something.

Repentless could be the last Slayer album, and if it is, it’s not a horrible way to go out. It’s not a classic, but it’s far from the embarrassment many were expecting. In fact I’d personally rank it higher than the band’s last record and at least on par with God Hates Us All. Repentless could also be a new beginning for Slayer: With a little more lyrical input from Tom and some riffs from Holt, there is potential for a strong follow up. I hope we get one, because I am not yet ready for a world without Slayer.