{"id":12967,"date":"2006-08-04T00:00:03","date_gmt":"2006-08-04T00:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=12967"},"modified":"2013-07-18T17:36:56","modified_gmt":"2013-07-18T17:36:56","slug":"album-review-slayer-christ-illusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-slayer-christ-illusion\/","title":{"rendered":"SLAYER – Christ Illusion (2006) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

SLAYER
Christ Illusion<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nAmerican Recordings (2006)<\/span>
Rating: 6.5\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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So, the king of drums, Dave Lombardo is back in the saddle, and longtime artistic collaborator Larry Carroll continues where he left off from Seasons In The Abyss<\/em> (1990) with more strikingly gory artwork. The cover art alone possibly suggests the four-piece are going back to basics, ditching some of the dynamics and structures which made the previous two records so bloody awful.<\/p>\n

Christ Illusion<\/em> does see Slayer<\/a> back on track, although with Kerry King still dominating in the songwriting stakes this revitalised Slayer is not without its flaws.<\/p>\n

Album opener \u2018Flesh Storm\u2019 treads over familiar ground, the track shifting between tempos as Tom Araya barks out the usual visceral barrage of unholy words as King and Jeff Hanneman rage with those vicious riffs and recognisable solos. And maybe that\u2019s the problem: Slayer suddenly feeling the need to recreate the gory horrors of Reign In Blood<\/em> (1986), South Of Heaven<\/em><\/a> (1988) and Seasons In The Abyss<\/em>, but never once matching their terrifying splendour.<\/p>\n

The relief however is that Christ Illusion<\/em> doesn\u2019t bow down to nu-metal crap, and neither does it attempt the hurtling vulgarity which God Hates Us All<\/em><\/a> (2001) miserably failed at. Lombardo\u2019s drums give the band that thrashy edge once again, and I\u2019m pretty sure that if Christ Illusion<\/em> had followed Seasons In The Abyss<\/em> then I\u2019d have respected Slayer more, especially as they were, for me anyway, the be all and end all of extreme metal in the 80s and early 90s.<\/p>\n

Although Slayer fans will find much to savour here, they\u2019ll find the brief workings of King especially, rather formulaic. The initial blast of \u2018Catalyst\u2019 simply sounds like another Reign In Blood<\/em> rework, and Araya still seems to have that overly aggressive rasp that made God Hates Us All<\/em> so annoying.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m also of the opinion that Slayer do not have to resort to constant foul language in order to get their anti-religious views across; if anything, such tumult suggests an almost na\u00efve approach to proceedings.<\/p>\n

Kerry King\u2019s third track in a row, the chugging \u2018Skeleton Christ\u2019, is all too keen to follow suit, except at a slower pace. The first trio of tracks suggest a Slayer sound, once again, bereft of any sinister notion, except for Dave Lombardo\u2019s unique double bass drum sound.<\/p>\n

With what seems per usual with Slayer nowadays, it\u2019s down to Tom Araya to bring a bit of grit to proceedings with the war-torn rumbles of \u2018Eyes Of The Insane\u2019, which brings to mind the potent whine of \u2018Mandatory Suicide\u2019 (1988) from all those years ago as it builds and builds with a crushing drum rumble. Sadly, it seems the more hostile Araya gets nowadays, the more his vocal grates, and \u2018Eyes Of The Insane\u2019 is ruined by the recent levels of profanity.<\/p>\n

The same could also be said for the controversial \u2018Jihad\u2019, which begins promisingly with a cutting riff, but again we\u2019re soon back to God Hates Us All<\/em> territory in the form of those despicable rants and all too familiar hooks that sound like cast offs from the band\u2019s late 80s discography.<\/p>\n

Kerry King is then keen to stamp his authority with two more short and sweet bursts \u2013 usually of one word titles \u2013 in the form of \u2018Consfearacy\u2019 and \u2018Catatonic\u2019; the former a three-minute head shrinker which gallops along without effect. However, King does occasionally get it right \u2013 which has seemed rare over the last few albums \u2013 and the \u2018Catatonic\u2019 is a real, simmering behemoth of a track. Lombardo\u2019s drums really jolt, as do those almost doom laden riffs, but the sad truth is whatever route this track takes, it\u2019s just not the Slayer of old.<\/p>\n

\u2018Black Serenade\u2019, co-written by Hanneman and King, is a stormy mid-tempo trudge that gets its rusty hooks into the flesh, but once there fails to cause any severe damage, and it\u2019s this track that just about sums up modern day Slayer; a band who once existed as gods of their chosen realm, but who today seem to wander in a blood stained limbo, heavily reliant on their back catalogue to perform gigs, and forever stuck in some huge, dark rut of indecision.<\/p>\n

King\u2019s \u2018Cult\u2019 is another mid-tempo chugger, but give it 90 seconds or so and you know where it\u2019s going as the drums hasten, and Araya\u2019s phlegm-soaked growl of \u201cReligion is a whore\u201d<\/em> attempts to shock. But we\u2019ve been here before, all those years ago when us kids were tainted forever more by the likes of \u2018Angel Of Death\u2019 and \u2018Mandatory Suicide\u2019. It\u2019s as if Slayer exists only as jobs for the members in question.<\/p>\n

I admire their longevity, and their muscular presence in the metal world, but as loyal fans we have been waiting for the next \u201cspecial\u201d Slayer record for so long now, and it never rears its ugly head. Album closer \u2018Supremist\u2019 confirms my thoughts, because despite its almost power metal-style intro, once again the band resort to another rapid rant that exists as nothing more than a blur, and I\u2019m left wondering where Slayer go from here?<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SLAYERChrist Illusion American Recordings (2006)Rating: 6.5\/10 So, the king of drums, Dave Lombardo is back in the saddle, and longtime artistic collaborator Larry Carroll continues where he left off from Seasons In The Abyss (1990) with more strikingly gory artwork. The cover art alone possibly suggests the four-piece are going back to basics, ditching some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-slayer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12967"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12983,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12967\/revisions\/12983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}