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Slayer - World Painted Blood: Simple but effective
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World Painted Blood hits you on two levels: while it's the best Slayer album since Seasons in the Abyss, it also marks Slayer's full transition to heavy metal band. Sure, there's a lot of fast riffing in here, and plenty of stuff from the "Big Four" days of Slayer, Metallica, Anthrax and Megadeth, but at its heart, this is a fast heavy metal album -- not ripping neo-death metal like classic Slayer.
Songs are verse/chorus with interludes, usually a slower part with less dynamic intensity, and while riffs are the characteristic Slayer stream of power chords, they end on the offbeat and fit into a neatly complementary pair which emphasizes the rhythm of the chorus. It's not bad, but it's not what made Slayer stand out ahead.
Instead, it's like a heavy metal band that took on enough Slayer technique. There are even several direct lifts from South of Heaven and Reign in Blood, but these riffs are used in a different way. It's like a painting containing another painting: a new framing, direction and structure.
But oddly this status change really helps Slayer. They've been searching for direction since they peaked on Reign in Blood, then made a slower and artier album, and had no idea where to go from there. At first it seemed like punk would prevail, as on Undisputed Attitude, but then we got simple verse/chorus speed metal on Divine Intervention that didn't really satisfy anyone.
With World Painted Blood, Slayer have made their version of Metallica's "black album." The style has been dialed back, and simplified, but by accepting that, they're able to write ripping, foot-tapping, catchy-chorus tunes that make you want to listen again -- and for many of us, that's a new feeling from this band again.
It may occur to no one else to compare this album to the latest Heaven and Hell, but it has a similar "space" to it -- the progressive elements that metal inherited from King Crimson and Jethro Tull through Black Sabbath didn't make it in here, but as an introduction to the genre, it shows a lot of the muscle without requiring commitment to serpentine song structures and archaic vocabulary and mythological imagery.
Will it satisfy the die-hard Slayer fan? I think it will in the same way the Heaven and Hell album does. It's like a perfect album for lifting weights, or a favorite place in the sun on a cold day, but not the album you reach for when you just don't understand life itself. Slayer are finally fine with that, and so am I. This is a compelling, infernal, infectious album.
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