Vim Fuego
One of the building blocks of thrash metal was a healthy dose of hardcore and punk, which fans of the genre have often trumpeted about loudly. It supposedly gave thrash a streetwise edge, and an open mindedness not always evident in more traditional metal. So what would happen if one of the true originators and innovators of thrash recorded an album of punk and hardcore covers? Would Slayer's `Undisputed Attitude' be embraced with open arms and accepted by fans as the band paying tribute to their influences? Um... no.
Tom Araya's opening scream "Disintegrate, you bastards!" may as well have been aimed at hundreds of thousands of tiny, narrowly focused minds which couldn't cope with this album. The casual observer might have thought perhaps Slayer had thrown away their amplifiers, discovered religion and sat around a campfire strumming folk songs with Joan Baez, such was the barrage of criticism thrown at this album. Slayer's actual crime? Not recording a Slayer album.
Instead of allowing their beloved band a little room to indulge themselves, and perhaps recharge their creativity by reinterpreting some punk classics, fans the world over ripped into the band for not recording a metal album. Thrash's thin façade of "open mindedness" fifteen years in the making was smashed by one short album - thrash fans simply couldn't accept something a little out of the ordinary.
Obviously, the album is different to other Slayer albums. There is little room for Kerry King's trademark tremolo abusing soloing, Paul Bostoph's drumming is kept relatively (and necessarily) simple, the riffing is dumbed down to the level of the originals, and Tom Araya's vocals are slightly higher pitched, with a touch of melody. However, it's still fast, vicious and heavy.
Perhaps the biggest problem was Slayer's choice of songs to cover. Taking the obvious route and revisiting "acceptable" metal favourites like the Sex Pistols, The Ramones, Discharge or even The Exploited, might have made the album easier for thrash fans to stomach. Instead, Slayer quite rightly went for their own personal favourites.
Minor Threat was possibly the least expected artist covered. Their philosophy ran somewhat counter to Slayer's own, and their music suffered from underproduction, but the guitar lines and aggressive vocals translate well. Tom Araya struck a little strife though, by changing the final line of "Guilty Of Being White" to "Guilty of being right", giving it a slightly racist overtone. However, Araya himself is of Chilean descent, hardly prime Aryan stock in the first place.
"Sick Boy", originally by GBH was probably the most obvious choice of the entire album, and one of the highlights. GBH's own style sometimes veered toward very basic Thrash, and the song is one of the most faithful covers on the album, with the bouncy, repetitive main riff given the full treatment. Oddly, it was left off the American release of `Undisputed Attitude', perhaps because it was a track from a British band.
"Violent Pacification" originally by D.R.I. was another oddity, in that the band were contemporaries of Slayer's. Also emerging from the West Coast underground, D.R.I. contributed a great deal toward the development of the crossover style of thrash, and often pushed speed barriers as the former holders of the title of fastest band in the world.
D.I.'s two contributions "Spiritual Law" and "Richard Hung Himself" are violent in their lyrical content and their simplistic riffing. Other offerings by T.S.O.L., Verbal Abuse, and Dr Know all fit reasonably well around each other.
Jeff Hanneman contributed a couple of tracks he'd written himself, originally intended for a punk side project which never came to much. "Can't Stand You" includes early thrash style sub-blast passages, while "Ddamm" has strong bass lines and Discharge style soloing. The full project could well have been a crossover classic had it developed fully.
The old Iggy And The Stooges song "I Wanna Be Your Dog" caused the most friction, both within the band and among fans. Jeff Hanneman was the only member of the band who actually wanted to record the song. It's masochistic, submissive lyrical bent did not suit Slayer at all, so as a compromise, it was retitled "I'm Gonna Be Your God", and Araya's aggressive vocal attack turned the filthy lyrics on their head, making for an unexpectedly sleazy spectacle, which never quite gets off the ground.
So as to pacify those expecting more traditional Slayer fare, new track "Gemini" was added to the end of the album. A dark, brooding song, in the style of "South Of Heaven", "Seasons In The Abyss" and "Dead Skin Mask", it slowly builds from a pounding mid pace tempo to a percussive climax, and would hold it's place on any post-`Reign In Blood' album.
Anyone expecting a pure thrash album from `Undisputed Attitude' is going to be disappointed, and probably deserves a smack around the head for expecting it. Instead, this is an album of reinterpretations of a number of punk classics, which helped shape Slayer, and by extension, led to the release of albums like `Reign In Blood' and `Seasons In The Abyss'.
Take it or leave it.