Slayer
Repentless

If at 11 years old your favorite band is Slayer, things probably aren't going too well for you.

Nothing serious, mind you. Maybe it's just that your classmates aren't exactly the friendliest, that if they put a ball at your feet you make Ranocchia look like a mix between the legendary Baresi and Roberto Carlos, that you hate your sister and wear glasses so thick they could start a fire if left in the sun.

And then all it takes is popping the "Seasons in the Abyss" cassette, recorded by some guy in your building, into the stereo to chase away the fears. Your ears fill with distortions and whistles, your temples with incessant pounding, and somehow the anger you harbor finds a path to follow.

Because at 11, when things aren't going too well, maybe you just need someone to scream in your place.

If 25 years after that cassette you find yourself reviewing Slayer's new album, things probably haven't improved much.
Or maybe it's just that despite the passing years, you're still so attached to that band that you want to dedicate at least one Saturday morning to them, on the couch, in pajamas, with the stereo blasting and an empty Word document to fill.

And wanting to fill that empty Word document, one could say that "Repentless" is all in all a good album.

For over 30 years, Slayer, to quote a fine thinker of our time, have been the best at what they do. And so they only do that. They are professionals writing songs on autopilot, fully aware they can't step away from the iconography they've stitched onto themselves, not caring about those who rightly accuse them of being monotonous or repetitive, even shamelessly recycling solutions and ideas already used in famous tracks (see, for example, the solo "quotations" in "Implode"). And if they occasionally try to change things up a bit ("When The Stillness Comes"), you notice it and think, yes, it's not bad, but...

Bostaph is objectively monstrous, and as usual, there will be those who say "ehhhh, but Lombardo...." and I, as usual, will say that Lombardo is God, but Bostaph plays drums better. And the arrangements of "Cast The First Stone" alone are there to prove it.

For a couple of albums now, Araya mostly gives me the impression that he really wants to hang up his bass and what's left of his vocal cords, shave his beard and hair, and retire to a place like Riva Bella or Arma di Taggia, where he could indulge in intense grappa-enhanced card games. Let's be clear: he's still going strong, and it's truly incredible that he can still scream like a madman after more than 30 years (although the scream in "Chasing Death" reminded me of when my grandmother used to wring chickens' necks), but (forgive the presumption) if you've listened to Slayer non-stop for over 15 years and now only revisit them when they release a new album, you can't help but notice certain things. Like how the vocal lines are constructed to let him catch his breath at the end of each verse. Or that if he were to even think about redoing the scream in "Angel of Death", he would need... No. Nothing. He just wouldn't make it.

On a guitar level, the sharp and feral sound of the 80s albums has long been replaced by a more modern and hardcore one, heavier and more crackling, less dry, which perhaps makes more of a "wall", but which continues not to convince an old-timer like me completely.
And still on the subject of guitars, before some evil genius comes along to talk nonsense, let's clear up any doubt: if they hadn't told us anything, no one would have noticed Hanneman's absence. I don't know if it's because Holt fits perfectly into King's style (?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?) or because the writing phase went more or less like this:

Holt: "Hey Kerry! I've got a great riff to show you! Relax:

ZZZZSBRASDRRAGAGAGAGGATSHZZZZDRAGAGAGGKLZZZZZISDRAGAGAVZOS4RE

King: "Mmm... well, it's nice. But listen to this:

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZDA! ZZZZZZZZZZZZZDA-DA! ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZDA!

Holt: "Wow Kerry, it's definitely very nice. But didn’t you perhaps use it to write a couple of other albums?"

King: "Honestly, I don't think so... But if you want, we can cancel a million-dollar contract, you can give up making an album with the greatest thrash metal band in the history of humanity and the next fifty thousand species that will inhabit Earth and go back to Exodus, if they'll still have you. Maybe they think like you do"

In short, I really cared a lot about Jeff. Yes, he was a bit of a Nazi, and for the past twenty years he could only dress in the same Los Angeles Kings hockey jersey, but in essence, he wrote my favorite Slayer songs and was a drunkard. And if King has always seemed like the brawling, obnoxious fat guy, as ignorant as one of Gasparri's testicles, I would've happily spent an evening with Jeff, perhaps with the realization that I would wake up the next morning with a bitter mouth and in need of a liver transplant.

Yet, really, his absence isn't felt.

Absence...

Here. The more I listen to it, the more I wonder: what is really missing from this album?
Maybe, thinking about it, nothing.
Or maybe, thinking about it a little more, everything.

It's missing the emotion.
Mine.

It's missing that, back when I had that cassette, I would wait to be alone at home.
I’d insert it into the stereo and turn up the volume.
And when "War Ensemble" started, everything disappeared.

School disappeared, the friends who weren't really friends, the girl who didn't like me, my skinny body, and my defective eyes.

And I was the soldier walking among the corpses, I was the light of the tracers illuminating the trenches at night, I was the bomb falling from the sky.
I was the malicious smile that spreads like a tear across the face.
I was the bad guy.

I was the killer.