Kerry King – From Hell I Rise – 2024

From Hell I Rise is the debut solo album of former Slayer guitarist Kerry King. He has gathered a new band around him for this. I guess it’s inevitable since Slayer is no more, even though they’re apparently doing a couple of festival gigs this year. For me, personally, there can’t be Slayer without Jeff Hanneman (who is dead) and Dave Lombardo so I guess I’ll have to settle for something else. Kerry King’s solo effort has been labeled “slayer light” by some people and I’ve seen in various interviews how Kerry defends the sound. Saying things like “If he wasn’t in Slayer, he’d be a fan” and stuff like that. He doesn’t want to develop into something else, He still wants to sound like Slayer as I understand it.

Does he succeed? Well, no. There are high-speed guitars for sure and the brutality is there but there’s a lack of “it”. I pretty much like the music on From Hell I Rise (which is an awful album title) but I more or less hate the vocals. And that’s an important aspect for me. I need to like the vocalist’s voice to really dig into what I’m hearing. I can hear why Kerry went for this should on the guitars and the vocals though. But to me, it kinda becomes Slayer “light”. I was going to mention how I miss the characteristic Slayer harmonies but about half time, some licks come close. I enjoyed that. But there aren’t any really good and memorable songs on there.

I could listen to all of it in one go but I have no desire to do it again. It’s pretty solid but without something special to lift it to new heights.