Just a heads up on this for any old metal heads like me who don’t go out and buy many CDs any more (especially the stuff put out by over the hill dinosaurs), the new Slayer CD, called Christ Illusion, is worth picking up. I haven’t bought any new Slayer for years but I got this because it has Dave Lombardo on it and because I heard it was good. It is. It’s vintage, balls out Slayer; no “Nu metal” influences, no attempt to sound contemporary or progressive, just good old fashioned, fast as hell, 90’s era death metal.
Lyrically it’s a full frontal assault on religion. It comments a lot on the Iraq War and the “War On Terror” but it frames the conflict in mythical terms rather than political (basically, they see the conflict as a clash of warring religions, both of which are ethically and intellectually bankrupt and both of which are destroying the world). I personally recommend the songs “Skeleton Christ” and “Cult,” but “Jihad” (which describes 9/11 from the hijackers’ point of view) is interesting as well and kind of a ballsy thing to do. Some of the imagery and rhetoric might be a little simplistic and slightly (ok, a LOT) over the top, but those are positive elements when you’re talking about a death metal album. Being offensive is the point.
If you’re an old metal head like I am, this is a CD worth picking up. If you really, really want to offend a politically conservative Christian, this is the perfect CD.
Warning: playing this CD in the car while driving may induce the impulse to accelerate sharply and begin mowing down pedestrians, GTA style. Always the test of a good metal album.
Has anyone else heard this album?