King needs no introduction whatsoever, and with the ending of Slayer there was no way he was just going to sit at home and retire gracefully, but instead he has pulled together some of his mates, recorded an album and soon will be back out on the road. All those involved have been in the scene for years, and while the likes of Phil Anselmo and Gary Holt were rumoured to be taking part, the line-up on the album sees Kerry working with Mark Osegueda (vocals), Phil Demmel (guitar), Kyle Sanders (bass) and drummer Paul Bostaph. Given there are two ex-members of Slayer, one from Death Angel, one from Machine Head and Vio-lence and the last from Hellyeah, this was never going to be a walk in the park and taking time to smell the roses, and the result of this coming together is just what we would expect, brutal and heavy.

I have always felt that Osegueda is a somewhat underrated singer, with Death Angel rarely getting the recognition they so richly deserve, and here he is working slightly outside his comfort zone to provide more of an Araya feel to the music. Given that is who King has been working with most of his life it is no surprise that is where he expects the vocals to be, but there are a few times when it sounds strained. The guitars of Demmel and King are locked in tight while Bostaph and Sanders sound as if they have been together forever. This is brutal music which unsurprisingly sounds in many ways as if it could have come straight from the Slayer playbook, and in many ways is a continuation from ‘Repentless’, although there are some songs where King is trying to really turn back time and move the commercial element into something far faster and brutal. It is strange to think that it is nine years since that album, but Slayer were never the most prolific of bands and it will be interesting to see if this unit stays together, and if so, what that mean for recording going forward given that many of those involved are active in other places as well.

I must confess I would rather listen to this release than some of Slayer’s later albums and now they are on the road one can expect them to grow even closer together as hopefully we will see this used as a base for the next one to take it even further in the brutal thrash direction we are getting with this one. Slayer are dead, long live the King.

Rating: 8/10

Links:
https://kerrykingofficial.com/
https://reigningphoenixmusic.com/