Band:	Slayer
Album:	Christ Illusion
Style:	Thrash metal
Release date:	August 08, 2006
Guest review by:	Stuart

01. Flesh Storm
02. Catalyst
03. Skeleton Christ
04. Eyes Of The Insane
05. Jihad
06. Consfearacy
07. Catatonic
08. Black Serenade
09. Cult
10. Supremist
11. Final Six [Re-release bonus]
+ Slayer On Tour '07 [Re-release bonus]

Five long years we waited for this latest chapter of the Slayer story. Dave Lombardo was back after a hiatus lasting more than a decade and prior to its release the media hailed this album as a great return to form. I finally got my hands on this disc, put it in my CD player, turned the volume up to the maximum, sat back and waited to be blown away. Forty minutes later and I was still waiting. Thinking that it may grow on me I put it straight back on and? nothing. There is not a single track on this album which catches my attention. Of course they are all very Slayer-esque, there are some catchy riffs which emerge every now and again and some good thrash guitar solos. Drumming is top-notch as we all expected. Vocals are angry, like always. So where did this album go wrong? Well, where do I begin?

The first thing that does stand out is that the lyrics are absolutely horrendous. You feel as though you've heard every single idea before. Except that in the past they were written a lot more intelligently and with far more subtle undertones. For some reason it appears as though they're trying to show that after all these years they're still exactly the same as they always were, but the truth is that they'd be far better off trying something new than rehashing concepts which they have already perfected and which simply cannot be improved upon. At times one feels as though they are insulting your intelligence with some of these lyrics.

The vocals do not flow and I find myself wondering time and again what on earth they were thinking. Some lines are just incredibly unsuited to the guitar melodies they accompany. There just doesn't seem to be the same conviction in the vocals as before. Every chorus is a laborious affair and doesn't really imprint itself in your memory; in fact they are easily forgettable. Minus the annoyance of the lyrics trying very hard to be clever and the awful vocals and it still feels as though these songs have been hacked together from some old riffs which weren't quite good enough to make it onto any of their classic albums.

It's not all bad though, there are a few passages that actually flow quite nicely however, Slayer have set themselves a very high standard and momentary glimpses of their former selves is simply not enough to satisfy the insatiable appetite of any person who has a very intimate relationship with their music. This album is a decent effort for new millennium Thrash Metal, but it is very average for a band that is considered a forerunner of this type of music.