Slayer
Barrowland, Glasgow
27/05/2010

It’s been a bad couple of weeks for metal. First comes the tragic passing of legendary metal mystic Ronnie James Dio, later followed by the untimely exit of Slipknot bass player, Paul Gray. For an already brooding community, well used to its share of darkness, doom and gloom, there is an especially sombre cloud forming. Leave it to Slayer then, to overcome all odds and charge headlong into the UK to show us why we love it so much in the first place.

This being the band’s third attempt to take their show to our shores, due to Tom Araya’s repeated neck surgery – not back surgery as he is keen to assert – this sold out crowd are even more hungry, rabid and giddy than one might already expect. Opening with the title track from last year’s ‘World Painted Blood’, a beaming Araya leads the thrash metal heavyweights through an intense hour and a half of pure cacophonous mayhem, failing to pry the grin off his own face for longer than one or two tracks.

It takes about two minutes for the Barrowland to become a sweat-drenched frenzy of battling bodies, but the mood is one of unified destruction, with every fallen comrade getting a helping hand and chucked back into the pit to enjoy a barrage of fist (or rather, horn) raising anthems. Despite being an early night – finishing at 10.15 prompt – the band manage to cram in the classics, from ‘Seasons In The Abyss’ and ‘Mandatory Suicide’ to more recent death-fests such as ‘Cult’ and ‘Disciple’, and of course a few select cuts from the aforementioned ‘World Painted Blood’.

Finishing with the unprecedented back-to-back assault of ‘South Of Heaven’, ‘Silent Scream’ and ‘Angel Of Death’, Slayer leave a trail of destruction that is worth every sprained neck, bruised rib and bleeding ear.

Ryan Drever