Slayer: 'World Painted Blood' to be released in November
California thrash metal veterans Slayer will release their new album, "World Painted Blood", in the U.S. on November 3 (one day earlier internationally) via American Recordings/Columbia Records.The final track listing for the CD is as follows:
01. World Painted Blood
02. Unit 731
03. Snuff
04. Beauty Through Order
05. Hate Worldwide
06. Public Display Of Dismemberment
07. Human Strain
08. Americon
09. Psychopathy Red
10. Playing With Dolls
11. Not Of This God
"As we're so excited about 'World Painted Blood'," said the band's drummer, Dave Lombardo, "we wanted to do something special for the packaging, and have been working with some really cool ideas. They've taken time to get just right, and with our headlining the Mayhem tour for most of the summer, it's just taken that much longer to get all these great ideas exactly the way we want them."
There will be three different editions of "World Painted Blood" ?a limited-edition CD with multiple CD covers, a deluxe edition CD/DVD, and a high-quality, 180-gram vinyl edition; specifics for all editions will be detailed shortly.
"We hope our fans will like everything about 'World Painted Blood' as much as we do," Lombardo continued. "Recording this new album has been one of the greatest experiences we've had as a band. We were together during the writing process more than we had been for past albums, we worked more collectively, everyone's suggestions and ideas were heard and considered, and that camaraderie is definitely heard in the new album."
Former Metal Edge editor-in-chief Phil Freeman has written the first track-by-track review of "World Painted Blood" for Msn Music's Heavy Metal Superfan site. After describing each of the album's 11 tracks in detail, he concludes: "A lot of people say Slayer hasn't really been great since 'Seasons in the Abyss'. Those people are wrong. The Paul Bostaph years had a lot to recommend them ('Diabolus in Musica' is a seriously underrated album), and 'Christ Illusion' showed that Slayer could experiment with dissonance and melody, and kick their own playing and songwriting up a notch when they wanted to. The bandmembers have given a lot of interviews talking about how a lot of this album was written in the studio. Listening to it, you can't tell. That's really impressive. Much the way Metallica's 'Death Magnetic' combined the thrash of their early years with the hard-rock grooves of their 1990s work, 'World Painted Blood' builds on the success of every Slayer album before it. It's not a legacy-polishing effort; it's the next step in a still-ongoing journey. Highly recommended."
Read the entire review at this location.
Slayer recently made another track from "World Painted Blood" available for streaming at Hot Topic's ShockHound.com web site. The limited-edition single, a Kerry King composition, is titled "Hate Worldwide", and is available exclusively as a CD-single at Hot Topic stores.
"It's a really cool track, and Tom's voice sounds incredible on it," said King. "The last line in the song's chorus is '..spread a little hate worldwide,' and that's what we've been doing for 25 years."
"World Painted Blood" was recorded in Los Angeles over two time periods, during October 2008 and then between late January and March 2009. The CD was produced by Greg Fidelman, who's spent time in the studio with Metallica, The Gossip, The (International) Noise Conspiracy, Slipknot and others, and executive-produced by longtime Slayer colleague Rick Rubin, who suggested Fidelman for the project.
Slayer - Araya, guitarists King and Jeff Hanneman, and Lombardo - recently co-headlined the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival with Marilyn Manson, Killswitch Engage, and Bullet For My Valentine, among others.