After forming in California 35 years ago, Slayer have gone on to gain a huge following all around the world. For this reason, it is perhaps somewhat impressive that fans are still urging for new music after 12 albums with the latest, Repentless, being released just last year. Unfortunately, it is bad news for those who were hoping for a quick follow-up to repentless as 2018 has been set as the expected release date.
In a recent interview with Kerry King, Slayer’s guitarist, Jaegermeister heard the news that would have disappointed many. Whilst performing at the Bloodstock Open Air festival in the UK, King said that they do have a lot of leftover music from the previous album. He noted how the band wrote too much music for the album so have recorded a good amount of it already. However, it all depends on whether the lyrics change the song musically. In that regard though, Slayer are ‘ahead of the game’ and are more advanced than they would be if they sat down with a blank canvas.
With this in mind, it seems as though an album wouldn’t be too far away but time is causing the biggest issue. Currently, Slayer are touring their newest album around the US with shows in California, Kentucky and Texas still to come. In addition to this, they also have a tour around the US with Death Angel and Anthrax which is set to last seven weeks in locations including Florida, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada. Ultimately, the band are likely to want to take some time off in 2017 and for this reason, King has said that there probably isn’t going to be anything before 2018.
Jumping back to the good news, King has said that he has been spending a lot of time working on new music even in his downtime. Interestingly, he also noted how they were considering creating two albums just as Ozzy did with ‘Blizzard of Oz’ and ‘Diary of a Madman’. If this happened, they would release the first before then sitting on the other for a couple of years. However, this never panned out and they never got far enough to record both albums simultaneously.
Slayer’s dedication and passion is still clear to see and fans will be happy to hear that there is already music in the pipeline. With Repentless less than a year old, we weren’t necessarily expecting anything in the immediate future and it is good to know that they want to perfect an album before releasing it to the masses. Whatever the release date, it is sure to generate interest and join Repentless on the Billboard 200; will it beat #4 though?
~RW
Image source: http://consequenceofsound.net/