Slayer: Divine Intervention
Confession time. Never listened to this album. Or
Diabolus in Musica. I've listened to every other Slayer album about fifty million times but I just never got around to these two except for maybe a song or two here and there. Time to rectify this.
It's starting off rather badass with "Killing Fields", but I'm gonna have to take points off for Tom's voice. I think I'm hearing the transitional point when his voice started to give out and he switched to dull screaming. It's still decent, but it's not the same as it was.
Aside from Tom's voice, which isn't really bad so much as it's just not great, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with this. It's pretty much the same thing as
Season's In the Abyss. Which is sort of my problem with post-
Reign In Blood Slayer. As much as I dig
South of Heaven and
Seasons In the Abyss there was always a feeling of "business as usual". There was progression sure, but the days of Slayer blowing you away with each and every release were gone and they were now playing to a formula. It was a good formula no doubt, but they had ceased to be a band that chilled one to the core because you had a pretty good idea what they were gonna do next and when the mystery is gone then so are the scares.
A little over half way and I'm not particularly impressed. There are parts that make me go, "Hey, that's pretty sweet!" but the actual songs aren't really blowing me away. At least on the previous two albums there were some truly knockout songs like "Dead Skin Mask" or "Mandatory Suicide" that could make up for the formulaic music, but on here I'm not really hearing those.
Alright, "SS-3" is pretty badass.
I'm pretty much done with the album now, and I'm gonna have to take a pass on
Diabolus in Musica for the moment. I've had enough mediocre Slayer for one day.