What is to say about this other than ‘SLAAAYER!!‘. Yes the thrash metal giants have entered the studio to record their 15th studio album.
The band posted an image of Kerry King very focused on a mixing board on their Facebook page, to let us know that the recordings are well underway. The as-of-yet untitled album will be their first in 5 years, and a follow up to 2009’s ‘World Painted Blood‘, and also their first since the death of founding guitarist Jeff Hannemann.
This summer guitarist Kerry King dropped a few hints about what to expect from the new album. When asked whether Hannemann wrote any music for the record:
“I’ve said, and I’ll continue to say, that if we use any of Jeff’s songs, I don’t want it to come out just because Jeff wrote it. I want it to come out because it’s awesome,” he added. “We’ve just got to put out something that I think Jeff would be proud of.”
When asked what to expect from the new record:
“I’ve got a surprising amount of heavy stuff for me. I do tend to lean on the fast side, but I have some exceptionally heavy tunes, Like, ‘Wow, man, where did that come from?’ I expect my stuff to be angry and fast, but it’s all over the map. I’m stoked. We’ll have enough so we can pick great stuff whether we use any of Jeff’s material or not. It should add up to as good a record as we can hope for with one of our original songwriters being gone.”
When asked whether new guitarist Gary Holt will have any contribution to the next record:
“I’ve told Gary that I’d like him to play some leads, just to keep it interesting.
“We’ve always been a two-guitar attack, so if you’re looking to have a segment like the ‘Angel Of Death’ lead trade-off, you can’t do that with one guitar.
“As far as Gary being a contributing writer, number one, fans aren’t ready for it, and number two, that’s like throwing somebody to the wolves.
“I think if there’s another record after this one and Gary is still with us at that point, I think that will be a time where I say, ‘Hey dude, feel free to throw any riffs my way if you’re interested’.”
I guess we all kind of know what to expect from a Slayer album, as not a whole lot has really changed over the past 30 years music wise. But the new offering could have a new interesting dimension to it with the addition of Gary Holt on guitars, maybe a bit of Exodus thrown into the Slayer mix?
