The thing about Slayer is, you always know what you’re going to get. Give or take a couple of fan-dividing diversions (based on something as radical as slowing down a touch), Slayer have been making the same record for 25 odd years now. They’ve never exactly been in fashion but, as rock comes in and out of vogue, have often found themselves feted as the daddies of extreme music. Now, with the classic line-up of King, Araya, Hanneman and Lombardo firmly back in place, comes Christ Illusion and boy, is it nasty.
Yet these are scary times and Slayer have almost become the house band for the new world disorder – their last album, the equally brutal God Hates Us All was released on September 11th 2001. Musically, there aren’t many surprises. It’s fast, furious and very, very heavy with only Kerry King’s hysterically showy solos distracting you from the task in hand.
It’s the lyrics, however, that draw the greatest attention. As with God Hates Us All, religion is the big theme here, and again the original cover art is deemed a little too strong for most to stomach, finding itself hidden by a less controversial image. Anyway, the news is that religion is a bad thing, that war is a bad thing and that the two are inexorably linked. This we probably already know, it’s just that Slayer take pleasure in making the point in the most violent manner possible. Anyone with merely a passing interest in any faith will find much of the imagery, well, challenging (try "The target’s fucking Jesus Christ, I would’ve led the sacrifice" for starters), although beneath all the shock value showboating – and this is bound to lead to a few interesting discussions in teenage homes across the world – are some valid and often well-made points.
Fundamentalism on all sides takes a bashing (‘Jihad’ assumes the character of a suicide bomber) and there can be no doubting that a genuine rage still fuels the band, but you can’t help feeling that lines like "Pissing on your faith, incinerate God’s whore" become meaningless in the end, just another lyric to chant at their gigs. Likewise the scattered references to Devil worship are just lazy, and as clichéd as much of what they attack elsewhere on the record. Christ Illusion is an album that is both challenging and frustratingly hackneyed. If a Muslim band had released this the world would have been in uproar (witness the Fun-da-mental furore) but for now, this is just another Slayer record.