Divine Intervention is the sixth studio album by the American Thrash Metal band Slayer. I think it might have been my introduction to the band as I was attending the live show of this tour here in Sweden. Of course. I also acquainted my self with the earlier albums at this point but I think Divine Intervention was the first album I ever bought with Slayer.
In hindsight, I couldn’t have had a worse entry point to the band. Not saying that Divine Intervention is a bad album. But it’s certainly not their best and everything that has defines Slayer on the previous albums are more or less gone. If I were to be a little bit mean I would say that Divine Intervention could have been any band out there. There’s not much about it that really sound like Slayer.
Of course, we have Tom Araya’s voice, but even that sound different most of the time. There’s not realy rhythm to the vocals and I find very few hooks in the music. I think that Kerry King is the main contributor to the music on Divine Intervention. There are collaborations with Jeff Hanneman, and even a song that he’s the sole creator of.
The lyrics are a kind of continuation of the last couple of albums – South of Heaven and Seasons in the Abyss. It’s more of social commentary and serial killers than about satanism as it was in the beginning.
The mix is strange I think, and it’s obvious that Rick Rubin isn’t involved in this as he was in the last few albums. I have read somewhere that neither Tom Arays nore Kerry King is really please with this mix and I under stand why. There’s just not that same edge to it. And, of course, that there aren’t any really memorable sections in the music doesn’t help either.
I don’t mean to bad mouth anyone but I miss Dave Lombardo behind the drumkit. He left the bad at this point and Paul Bostaph step in to take his place. He’s a great drummer, there’s no double about that. But I think it’s very hard not to compare what he did here with what the drumming sounded like in the previous albums. He’s credited with lyric contribution on one song though, which is one more that Dave Lombardo!
