Slayer’s been in the news a lot lately, but less about their forthcoming album, Repentless, and more about guitarist Kerry King’s thoughts on the Mayhem Festival and its cofounder, Kevin Lyman. He’s really beginning to sound like a broken record, and at the very least, he should’ve maybe waited until the tour was over to run his mouth. At any rate, with the fest coming to an end this Sunday (2), maybe things will focus a little more on Repentless, which is out on September 11th. That being said, in an interview with the Houston Press, King says the band’s already looking towards the next album.
Slayer will be out promoting Repentless through the next year, at least. King says the group has already put themselves ahead of the game by recording half a dozen songs for their next album, too, so don’t count on Slayer shuffling off into the darkness anytime soon.
Maybe the next album should be called Relentless, because it doesn’t seem like they’re slowing down, despite how weary Tom Araya comes across in interviews. There’s no word on whether or not late guitarist Jeff Hanneman contributed to any of the other recorded songs, but in the interview, King says that they were writing for a couple of years before Hanneman passed, so it’s a possibility. In the rest of the interview, King admits that he’s out of touch with new metal, or just doesn’t find any of it worthy of his ears:
“I know there are a handful of bands I like that are younger than us, but they’re certainly not carrying the torch,” King says. “The last big movement I liked was the Scandinavian movement, which had, like, Arch Enemy, the Haunted, Children of Bodom and In Flames, but those guys have been around 20 years now, so they’re no spring chickens! After that, there’s bands out there, but I don’t see anybody primed to step up as the next headliner. I don’t know why. To be sure, I don’t hear everything. Maybe they’re out there and I just don’t know it.”
Of course he finds some time to bash Lyman in the interview again, never thinking that maybe he should choose his words more carefully when at a microphone. Or that maybe the reason ticket sales were down for Mayhem is because many fans got to see Slayer play six months before in a lot of the same markets. It’s almost like he’s not going to repent or something.
