By comparison, there aren't really any showcase pieces like Paul Bostaph's deliberate Lombardo kiss-off in Divine's opener, "Killing Fields", but Bostaph's previous tenure in the band makes his return here more of a homecoming than a proving ground, and as far as guitar work goes it would obviously be unseemly to attempt to upstage Jeff Hanneman at his own game.Īs such, this is a songwriting record, and at that it actually shows Slayer to be quietly more invigorated than they have been in years. If anything, Repentless is tighter and more focused due to the decreased input, coming in as hands down the band's most essential out-and-out thrash album since Divine Intervention. Repentless is no more chock full of instant classics as Christ Illusion or World Painted Blood, but the fact that it gains any ground at all in spite of the loss of songwriting input is a huge gold star on Kerry's resume. This is not a fault, by the way: King steps up to the plate in a manner which will go down as one of his defining moments in a career full of them. Aside from a leftover Hanneman outtake ("Piano Wire") the rest of the album is almost entirely the work of fellow founding guitarist Kerry King. Gary Holt ( Exodus) has done an unassailably admirable job filling Hanneman's shoes, even back when Hanneman was alive but sidelined for necroticizing fasciitis – that most metal of spider bites – but there was still a question of whether Holt could step in and fill Hanneman's shoes as a songwriting.
The stakes are even higher now that Lombardo is out of the band once again due to business differences but also Jeff Hanneman, the most eccentric of Slayer's songwriters and one of their more prolific, is straight up deceased and not exactly a contract re-negosh away from jumping back on board.
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