Slayer - World Painted Blood

Slayer is one of those bands - like AC/DC - where you have a general sense of what you’re getting when you buy one of their albums.  They’ve got their sound where you immediately know it’s them when you hear it.  When a band has such a distinctive sound that they’re sticking with, the main variable from album to album is the quality of the songs.

With World Painted Blood, Slayer has put together one of the best collection of songs in a long time.  It’s their second album since reuniting with original drummer Dave Lombardo.  Their previous effort, 2006’s Christ Illusion was a step in the right direction, but some of the songs on it didn’t deliver.  World Painted Blood feels like a continuation of the previous release, but with a vast amount of improvement.  Sure the usual things are present - Tom Araya’s ominous vocals and the monster guitar playing of Hanneman and King - but they’ve also come up with a group of memorable songs that rank with their best.

I wouldn’t rank World Painted Blood with my personal Slayer favorites Reign in Blood and South of Heaven, but this will probably end up being one of my favorite releases of 2009.