Review Summary: A great album, filled with intense riffing, fast drums, and harsh psychotic vocals. Worthwhile for any metalhead to pick up and listen too.
Slayer- Christ Illusion
Slayer, I’m sure you all know who they are: psychotic visions of death, destruction, and chaos. Their known for their incredibly violent and anti-religious lyrics, and their also known for their insanely fast song structure that pounds your brain until it crumbles. Slayer is one of the four “kings” of thrash metal, but the thing that sets them apart from Megadeth, Anthrax, and Metallica is their overall viscious and speedy style of songwriting. They revolutionized metal with their must-have classic album, “Reign In Blood.” That album has been considered the fastest album ever created in many metalheads’ minds. They then continued their metal glory run with “South of Heaven,” another thrash metal masterpiece, although not as fast as “Reign In Blood.” Finally the band released their third masterpiece, “Season in the Abyss,” another successful metal instant classic.
From there the band started to go downhill with the release of “Divine Intervention,” this album was a disappointment to many fans (including me). It wasn’t nearly as fast as their previous albums, and the attention to songwriting was decreased by a substantial amount. For the next twelve years Slayer continued to release average to mediocre albums, it seemed like all hope was gone (haha Slipknot pun). But then they released “Christ Illusion,” which they promised would go back to the style of their classic work. They definitely deliver on this promise, as “Christ Illusion” combines elements of all three of their best albums: “Reign In Blood,” “South of Heaven,” and “Seasons in the Abyss.”
This album actually surprised me to a great extent; after I listened to “God Hates Us All” I immediately told myself I would never pick up any new Slayer albums. But then one day my buddy told me that “Christ Illusion” was exactly like their older stuff, I originally just ignored him, but then I ended up hearing “Cult” (a great single) over the radio and I picked up the album the next day. I popped it in my stereo and started headbanging to the furiously fast blast beats, the crushing shred riffing, and the satanic and shrieking screams of Araya. I’ve since listened to the album very many times, and very thoroughly a few times, and I got to say I enjoy every song off of this album. Slayer has achieved yet another thrash masterpiece.
Upon first listening to the album I realized that the lyrics are even more controversial and disturbing than their previous work. This is a good thing, as I find Araya’s lyrics very entertaining to listen to, and their also very well written from a writer’s perspective. A great song to listen to if you want a taste of how controversial the lyrics really are is “Cult,” as it bashes on religion so bad its probably a crime. Anyone who is Christian or religious for that matter should not listen to this album, because you will probably be so offended you’ll attempt to sue Slayer (which won’t happen haha).
This album seems to be influenced slightly from metalcore (the dreaded genre), as it has frequent breakdowns in almost every song. This is especially prevalent in “Flesh Storm,” as it enters a “breakdown” in the song structure with a fast and very random guitar solo, which is ok, because that’s what Slayer does best and they do it well. Both Hanneman and King present excellent proficiency and technicality in their ability to play guitar solos. They show off in almost every song on the album, but possibly the most impressive display of ability is present in the song “Supremist.” This is one of the fastest and most well-written songs on the album, pounding a constant barrage of double bass and heavy lightning-fast guitar riffs. Although I think they should have concluded the album differently, as this song really leaves me wanting more from Slayer.
Now this whole time I have been going on about how fast the drums are, well its obvious that Dave Lombardo has made a convenient return to the set. I’m glad that he came back for this album, because without him, I probably wouldn’t consider this album a masterpiece. He presents a constant barrage of double bass, fast snare blasts, and speedy symbol strikes the whole entire album. He doesn’t really do anything revolutionary, but that really isn’t needed since he keeps up with Hanneman and King, which is an accomplishment all in itself.
I wish I could say something about the bass other than its fast, but the fact of the matter is that the bass is turned down so low on this album its near impossible to determine how good it is. From what I could hear, it seems like Araya keeps up with the pace that his fellow band mates set. Nothing really amazing here, just more really quick guitar riffing.
Possibly the best song to demonstrate the band at it’s full potential is “Catalyst,” which starts off brilliantly fast, and keeps that speed the entire song. Araya cuts in with harsh scream-rapping vocals (yeah that’s what I called it), which I actually like a lot, it gets you in the mood to just punch someone in the face. There are complex guitar rythms and riffs throughout the entire song, but then it leads into a short guitar solo that just blows my mind every time, because unlike normal Slayer solos, it actually is melodic and makes sense.
The song that impresses me the most lyrically is probably “Black Serenade,” its lyrics are just absolutley amazing. Their filled with intelligence, psychoticness, and strangely poetry:
“Voice inside my head
Your face still shows itself to me
Telling me you’re dead
Staring at your lifeless body
I saw you ***ing die
My mind’s tearing itself apart
Screaming from the inside
Release this pain from my ***ing heart
Destroy this empty shell
Smash away the haunting fear
I hate your endless stare
Watching as I *** your corpse.”
I mean that right there is just pure genius, when you listen to those lyrics you can hear the energy as Araya screams through the microphone.
This album overall, for me, is probably the best thing Slayer has released in a long time. It’s just as fast as “Reign In Blood,” and just as creative as “South of Heaven.” I suggest any fan of Slayer or thrash metal go pick up this album immediately.
Recommended Tracks:
Catalyst
Skeleton Christ
Black Serenade
Cult
Supremist
But just go pick up or download the entire album…….
