Repentless is the twelfth and last(?) album by Slayer. You should never say never of course but I find it highly improbable that they will ever release more music under the Slayer moniker. Kerry King made a solo album a couple of years ago – From Hell I Rise, which sound kind of like slayer but still not.
Jeff Hanneman died in 2013 which means that Kerry King is the sole writer of the music left in the band. Tom Araya has been credited with lyrics of the years but never any musical contribution which makes it unlikely for him to contribute anything in the future. And King usually writes the lyrics for his songs by himself as well. That doesn’t give any room for Araya.
Furthermore, Kerry King and Dave Lombardo are not on speaking terms with each other. King has declared that Lombardo is dead to him. I don’t know how the feeling are the other way around. I can’t say all the details about it but there was a fallout over money that’s for sure.
So, in other words, Dave Lombardo is once again replaced by Paul Bortaph and Jeff Hanneman is replaced by Gary Holt on this album. If you are to believe what has been stated on the wikipedia page. All songs (well almost) has been written by King and Araya, which to me implicates that Tom actually has been involved in the music creation. But on the other hand I guess they just didn’t distinguish the separate parts of the creation process.
Repentless is recognizable
Relentless starts of pretty nice. You immediately hear what band it is. It’s easy recognizable guitar parts. You know those lines and riffs that characterize their sound. And has been characterized their sound on most of their albums. I think it’s more one-dimensional than before. Maybe because Jeff Hanneman’s influence on the song writing is missing? His song were often a little more “groovy” and not just in you face fast and heavy. He had som more finesse to his songwriting in my opinion.
That’s not saying that the song on Repentless is bad in any way. I actually enjoyed the album quite well. Speaking about fitness, I also miss that aspect of Lombardo’s drumming and rhythm arrangement. Paul Bostaph keeps the rhythm just fine and it works but it never gets outstanding.
But regardless of all that I still think that Repentless could’ve been a really great album if the production values were in place. I’ve always said that it’s more important what sound that how it sounds. Because I always felt like the songs themselves are more important that the production. But this might be the exception to that rule. If you listen to the last couple of albums that were really crisp and exciting sounding. Something gets lost on Repentless. The song are ok and so on, but there’s not an exciting sound that draws you in and make you even more interested.
