Diabolus in Musica

CD Cover Slayer
Sony

Review by Darren Kerr



Yeah, this disc sounds like Slayer. So? Everybody who Slayer influenced seem to be progressing, moving forward, trying out new shit. Not Slayer. I was hoping that the format wouldn't be the same. You know, solo Hanneman -- solo King -- solo Hanneman -- solo King -- solo Oh Fuck Off already with the weedly weedly weeedddlllys!!

I used to really get off on Slayer, man, the we-just-killed-this-girl-now-we're-gonna-eat-her publicity photos, the fishhook in the cranium riffs of "Crionics," "At Dawn They Sleep," "Black Magic"... I could go on. It was intense goofy shit. The Herschel Gordon Lewis of black speed death metal.

Then suddenly it didn't matter. People started to up the ante. Danish gore freaks began burning churches, embracing gloomy chamber music, and even stabbing other Danish gore freaks. How can Slayer top that? They can't. Now they're angry and socially relevant -- but isn't every harsh metal band going from Anton Levay to CNN?

Yeah okay, I know that if you like all things brutally heavy you're going to like this, but for me the huge buildup only brings huge letdown. You don't care though. You bought the latest Deicide, the new Cannibal Corpse, and you're gonna buy this. If you're an impressionable idiot you might kill somebody in the name of evil -- or preferably you'll kill yourself thus thinning the herd. If you're halfway normal you'll tire of this stagnant genre and start embracing something you haven't heard a million times before.

Oh, sorry, I'm being the black metal equivalent of a militant reformed smoker. Sorry, go ahead and smoke 'em if you got 'em, and pick up Diabolus in Musica cause it rocks, cause you rock, cause killing is your business and business is good. Fugeddaboudit.




First published in Drop-D Magazine on December 5, 1998

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