3 out of 5

Label: Nuclear Blast

Produced by: Terry Date

I’m a sucker for a rock instrumental opening tune that gives way to some kind of band showcase on track two. I’d read plenty about Slayer’s Repentless that prepared me for a Jeff Hanneman-less experience, but the cinematic crawl of intro Delusions Of Saviour to the classic Slayer thrash of the title track appealed to that aforementioned sucker in me – and I was sold.

Later: I was maybe a little bored.

Besides sucker-me, there’s contrary-me who wants to champion underdog movies and albums like they’re the best, but the line on Repentless is way too clear to deny: it is a very straight-forward, tonally and stylistically linear disc, occasionally dipping into more paced chugga chugga (e.g. When the Stillness Comes), but this is functionally just a slower version of the group’s blistering thrash.

Of course, few acts are as technically (consistently) skilled at this stuff as Slayer, and the return of Paul Bostaph’s precision, pummeling drumming is the perfect support for this approach, as is the use of Terry Date’s very clipped production style, something which has honestly never worked that well for me but helps bring all this noise close to ear without it being overwhelming. Linearity in terms of tone is also not an uncommon criticism for Slayer, but I will say it swings in an interesting direction here: age and the roster-changing events give Kerry King’s lyrics a very insular oppressiveness that runs alongside surface level angry-at-society rants, juggling frustrations with oneself and the world. So when I tune in to the line reads (slung with such dedicated ire by Tom Araya) or get that rush of listening to unleashed guitar solos played at top speeds without a hitch, Repentless does start to win me over.

Again, though, this stuff is kind of in service of shock and awe, and when it repeats approximately the same way on several tracks, it can stop having that effect.

If a new band came out with this disc – it’d be an undeniably impressive display. For a band 30+ years in, it’s also impressive, but for a group who has been so consistently impressive throughout those years, it doesn’t quite pass muster.