230. Slayer / Diabolus In Musica. 1998. 3.5/5.

Slayer’s ride through the first half of the 90’s decade had seen them able to stem the tide that worked against so many metal bands in that decade. As the rise and fall of grunge was replaced by a scene cruising into alternative metal, industrial metal and nu-metal, many of their contemporaries had already made adjustments to the music they were producing, and for the most part were finding the going more difficult. Slayer had been on the crest of a wave with their “Seasons in the Abyss” album, and despite the loss of long time drummer Dave Lombardo, had found an able replacement in Paul Bostaph, and then released “Divine Intervention” in 1994 which continued their impressive aggressive releases. They then brought out their “Undisputed Attitude” album where the band covered punk and hardcore songs from their favourite bands of that genre, an album that received mixed thoughts from the fans.
What the fans were looking for was a new album with new material. It had been four years between Seasons and Intervention, and so it was to be a further four years between Intervention and their 8th studio album, “Diabolus in musica”, a name that translates as ‘The Devil in Music’ in Latin. Most of the album is played tuned down to C#, an interesting shift that was to be a talking point going forward.
There have been plenty of people, both so-called experts and fans alike, who have noted the trajectory that this album takes seems to have a lot of influence from a band like Pantera, who had taken the 90’s decade by storm after completely revamping their own sound. Now Dimebag Darrell had plenty of fanboys in the music world who it felt then dictated their own music direction to implement that style, and Slayer certainly appear to have been one of them. The fairly obvious slip into a genre that imitates nu-metal if it doesn’t fully go down that path seems to be a driving factor here, and over the years it has brought that feeling with it.

When it comes to discussing the best moments on Diabolus in Musica, they will inevitably be those that remind you the most of days gone by. The opening track “Bitter Peace” has a fantastic build-up and payoff that most Slayer fans would appreciate. “Scrum” contains some terrific time changes and a couple of formidable riffs that show that even eight albums in Hanneman and King can still mix it with the best. “Screaming From the Sky” also harks back to an earlier time, of the mid-tempo thrash of the late 1980’s era of the band and the way it could bring out that awesomeness of the band. So too “Perversions of Pain”, where the mid-tempo is only interrupted by the terrific solo riffs. Great stuff.
Perhaps the only song here that works well that doesn’t call on past glories is “Stain of Mind”, which manages to sound completely modern, with a chunky groove and that nu-metal rhythm and vocals, while still satisfying from an extremity point of view. You can hear even now how it was the best loved track on its release.
The remaining tracks have a consistent blandness to them, with the band seemingly caught in a zone where riffs become almost irrelevant to the song and Araya’s at-times monotonous shouting becomes the focus. “Love to Hate” is the worst offender, but “Overt Enemy” is close behind, both of which become tedious long before anything of note occurs. King and Hanneman’s lead breaks are almost always worth waiting for, with blood-pumping impact through the structure of the song, but in the framework of these fairly dull and unremarkable efforts, they simply fail to serve any purpose at all.
For me, one of the most interesting parts about this album is that all of the music bar one song, Kerry’s “In the Name of God” is composed by Jeff Hanneman, and the reason this surprises me is because as a Slayer fan I’ve always generally loved Hanneman’s compositions over the other band members efforts. So the fact that this musical direction has pretty much been set by the guy I think writes the best Slayer songs is something that has always been difficult to overcome.

1998 was, for me, a massively desolate year when it came to new music from bands I loved. There was a reason I was beginning to drift towards the European metal scene, as they seemed to be moving in a positive direction, whereas the bands I had always loved were changing the way they had gone about things to try and remain relevant. And it is a very easy thing to say that from my point of view they should have continued to write the same music that they always had and they would have survived and succeeded, because I most probably could have been wrong.
I bought this in my local record store where I was living at the time in Newtown, and rushed home to put it on and listen to new Slayer music. And it would be fair to say that the reception it received at that time was very very cold. I wasn’t sure if I was missing something, whether I was the one who was expecting too much from this album. The general consensus amongst my friends who listened to Slayer at that time was that it was fine but wasn’t outstanding. On it’s release in fact, in metal magazines, the album initially was immensely popular within the fans base, some ranking it as high as the 2nd all time Slayer release. I was never sold on it as that. I enjoyed the album – certainly when it was released it got a hammering having waited so long for a follow-up to “Divine Intervention” – but there was something that I find is not as enjoyable as so many of their other albums. In the long run, this was a hybrid, modernised Slayer album, one where things had been tweaked and changed, and for me it didn’t quite click.
On listening to the album a lot again over the past few weeks, I guess I still have those same conclusions. It isn’t a bad album but it is definitely of a differing style. My most endearing comparison is that I have been listening to this album paired with another album that I am listening to for my next podcast episode, Nuclear Assault’s 1988 release “Survive”. The true thrash metal style of that album so completely dominates over the style of this album, that for me it perfectly reflects what is missing from “Diabolus in musica” - true thrash metal guitars and speed and joy. It’s sometimes amazing the difference ten years can make.