Slayer - Christ Illusion

Genre metal Publisher American Recordings External Links Official Slayer Website Official American Recordings Website

It seems like only yesterday that I was driving my first truck in the small Texas town I grew up in, blaring the loudest most offensive thrash metal of the time. Back then, Pantera ruled the scene and it wasn't uncommon for me to drive to school blasting Vulgar Display of Power at seven o clock in the morning.

Oh, but those days have long since past as my morning commutes now involve hot coffee, business casual attire and mellow electronic indie-pop. Who knows why I rarely listen to old Metallica and Pantera these days. Perhaps I just grew out of it. Or maybe the music started to suck after Pantera split and Metallica chilled out. What I do know is that it was quite surprising to find myself reviewing the new Slayer album. "Just another bunch of washed up metal thugs," I thought, not expecting much.

The new album is called Christ Illusion and that low expectation could not have been more wrong. This as fresh and hard-core as Reign in Blood and then some. Christ Illusion violently rips through the first song "Flesh Storm" to the last, "Supremist," like a methed-out psycho in the middle of a bloody mass murder. Maybe it's the war in Iraq, maybe it's the combined aggression of the band's original line up, but whatever the case may be, Slayer was not fucking around when they made this album. Although Christ Illusion stands out in its entirety, it is "Jihad" that fully sets it off. The song features some of the most aggressive riffs and angry vocals I've ever heard, making it an instant personal favorite, plus they get mad points for having the balls to do a song written through the eyes of a terrorist.

For an undercover old metalhead like myself, Christ Illusion marks a return to real, testosterone-fueled death metal; the kind that used to be the cause of so much teenage aggression in the eighties and nineties. These days, in our modern fear driven society, kids are spending far too much time staying inside avoiding trouble and being raised by their mamas. This is why Christ Illusion is so great: finally, kids have something to raise hell to again.

All hail Satan!