Repentless

Nuclear Blast

Slayer

Slayer’s mid-80s thrash-metal implied a set of wilful extremes, but also an economy and focus. It found its essence in attitudes and strategies that wouldn’t go out of style: previews of the apocalypse, splattery guitar duels, minor keys, tempos rising above 200 beats per minute.

Repentless is the sound of Slayer telling you that it still recognises its essence, despite the fact that three people associated with its best work are now gone. Those are guitarist and songwriter Jeff Hanneman, who died in 2013 and has been replaced by Gary Holt; the group’s founding drummer Dave Lombardo, who left the band in 2013 and has been replaced by Paul Bostaph (Slayer’s drummer during a non-Lombardo interim from 1992 to 2001); and producer Rick Rubin, who worked on every album by Slayer between 1986 and 2009. The new album is produced by Terry Date and doesn’t greatly vary the formula. It is loud and precise, with very little reverb.

You don’t hear the band straining against limitations, or writing at its peak. But Repentless is comfortable, full of certainty, good enough. The title track is not about a warlord or criminal but a hardened musician in a band, and the album feels self-referential in other ways, too. It averages out some of Slayer’s best moves: dire riffs at galloping speed; advanced-class, divebombing guitar jabber — especially from Holt, on tracks like Vices and You Against You. (I miss the comparative swing and lightness in Lombardo’s drumming.)

And then there’s the aggrieved yelling of Tom Araya, the bassist and singer. “So is it just me?” he asks in Implode. “Can everyone see/the world drowning in its own blood?” He’s been doing this for a very long time, but there’s still no reverb on his vocals, no smoke and mirrors to make him grander than he is. He doesn’t sound seigneurial. He’s still reflecting fear and cynicism: permanent conditions.