Diabolus in Musica is the seventh
studio albumA studio album is an original collection of new tracks by a recording artist.It usually does not contain live recordings and/or remixes, and if it does, those tracks do not make up majority of the album and are often "bonus tracks"...
by American
thrash metalThrash metal is a subgenre of heavy metal that is characterized by its fast tempo and aggression. Thrash metal songs typically use fast, percussive and low-register guitar riffs, overlaid with shredding-style lead work. Thrash metal lyrics often deal with social issues using direct and denunciatory...
band
SlayerSlayer is an American thrash metal band from Huntington Park, California, formed in 1981. The band was founded by guitarists Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King. Slayer rose to fame as one of the leaders of the American thrash metal movement with their 1986 release, Reign in Blood, which has been called...
. Released on June 9, 1998, it is the second studio album to feature drummer
Paul BostaphPaul Bostaph is a heavy metal drummer, who has played for the bands Forbidden, Slayer, Testament, Exodus and Systematic. He is from Newark, California and currently drums for Testament....
. Although receiving mixed critical reviews, the album sold 46,000 copies in its first week to peak at number 31 on the
Billboard 200The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling new music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
.
Guitarist
Jeff HannemanJeffery John "Jeff" Hanneman is a guitarist and a founding member of the American thrash metal band Slayer. Hanneman grew up in Los Angeles in a family of war veterans, and his fascination with warfare is attributed to his upbringing...
wrote most of the album's content which has been described as Slayer's most experimental album.
Diabolus in Musica is the seventh
studio albumA studio album is an original collection of new tracks by a recording artist.It usually does not contain live recordings and/or remixes, and if it does, those tracks do not make up majority of the album and are often "bonus tracks"...
by American
thrash metalThrash metal is a subgenre of heavy metal that is characterized by its fast tempo and aggression. Thrash metal songs typically use fast, percussive and low-register guitar riffs, overlaid with shredding-style lead work. Thrash metal lyrics often deal with social issues using direct and denunciatory...
band
SlayerSlayer is an American thrash metal band from Huntington Park, California, formed in 1981. The band was founded by guitarists Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King. Slayer rose to fame as one of the leaders of the American thrash metal movement with their 1986 release, Reign in Blood, which has been called...
. Released on June 9, 1998, it is the second studio album to feature drummer
Paul BostaphPaul Bostaph is a heavy metal drummer, who has played for the bands Forbidden, Slayer, Testament, Exodus and Systematic. He is from Newark, California and currently drums for Testament....
. Although receiving mixed critical reviews, the album sold 46,000 copies in its first week to peak at number 31 on the
Billboard 200The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling new music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
.
Guitarist
Jeff HannemanJeffery John "Jeff" Hanneman is a guitarist and a founding member of the American thrash metal band Slayer. Hanneman grew up in Los Angeles in a family of war veterans, and his fascination with warfare is attributed to his upbringing...
wrote most of the album's content which has been described as Slayer's most experimental album. The album's title is a
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe...
term for "The Devil In Music", a musical
intervalIn music theory, the term interval describes the relationship between the pitches of two notes.Intervals may be described as:* vertical if the two notes sound simultaneously* linear , if the notes sound successively....
known for its
dissonanceIn music, a consonance is a harmony, chord, or interval considered stable, as opposed to a dissonance — considered unstable...
. Lyrical themes explored on the album include religion, deviants, death, maniacs, war, and serial killers.
Writing and recording
Slayer guitarist
Jeff HannemanJeffery John "Jeff" Hanneman is a guitarist and a founding member of the American thrash metal band Slayer. Hanneman grew up in Los Angeles in a family of war veterans, and his fascination with warfare is attributed to his upbringing...
described the writing process as, "When we were writing this album I was looking for something to beat; I wanted something to beat, but nothing impresses me right now. Nothing sounded really aggressive or heavy enough to inspire me to beat it, so I just had to come up with my own shit." The album was produced by
Rick RubinFrederick Jay "Rick" Rubin is an American record producer and, as of mid-2009, the co-head of Columbia Records....
and was recorded at Oceanway Studios.
Adrien Begrand of
PopMattersPopMatters is an international webzine of cultural criticism that covers many aspects of popular culture. PopMatters publishes reviews, interviews, and detailed essays on most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, comics, sports, theater,...
felt Slayer introduced characteristics to its music including tuned down guitars, murky
chordIn music and music theory a chord is a set of three or more different notes from a specific key that sound simultaneously. Chords constructed of three notes are described as triads and consist of two intervals. The technical name for triad chords is tertian sonorities and is understood to be chords...
structures, and churning beats. He believed these characteristics were adopted with the growth of the burgeoning
nu metalNu metal is a genre of heavy metal that blends hip-hop, grunge, alternative metal, funk metal and various other heavy metal influences such as industrial, groove and thrash.-Origins:...
scene. Drummer
Paul BostaphPaul Bostaph is a heavy metal drummer, who has played for the bands Forbidden, Slayer, Testament, Exodus and Systematic. He is from Newark, California and currently drums for Testament....
claims the album is his favorite as he thought the album was "as experimental as Slayer got". This included incorporating
groove metalGroove metal is a subgenre of heavy metal that emerged in the early 1990s. The genre emerged in the early 1990s through albums such as Exhorder's Slaughter in the Vatican and Pantera's Cowboys from Hell ; who first incorporated groove-based rhythms into thrash metal...
elements and strange vocal effects as said by an interview for
High Times. Bostaph returned to Slayer after his short-lived side project The Truth About Seafood, and the band entered the recording studio four months later.
Album title and lyrical themes
Diabolus in Musica is a Latin term for "The Devil in Music" or
tritoneThe tritone is a musical interval that spans three whole tones. The tritone, sometimes known as the Diabolus in Musica, is the same as an augmented fourth, which in 12-tone equal temperament is enharmonic to a diminished fifth...
. Medieval musical rules did not allow this particular dissonance. According to one mythology, the interval was considered sexual and would bring out the devil; Slayer vocalist and bassist
Tom ArayaTom Araya is a Chilean American musician, best known as the bassist and vocalist of the American thrash metal band Slayer....
jokingly said that people were executed for writing and using the interval.
Araya held concern about the lyrics that King penned to "In the Name of God", voicing his opinion to guitarist Hanneman. King's viewpoint was; "It's like, 'C'mon, man, you're in Slayer. You're the antichrist — you said it yourself on the first album!' You can't draw the line like that. Whether he agrees with it or not, he didn't write it — I wrote it. So you have to say, 'Well, it's just a part of being in this band.' Now Jeff and I, we don't give a fuck. If Jeff wrote something I had a problem with, I would never even raise a fucking finger. I'd be like, 'Fuck yeah, let's do it! Gonna piss someone off? Alright!'" Jason Hundey of
Allmusic observed; "Thankfully the lyrics have not traveled the route of "
Ain't My BitchAin't My Bitch is the first song from Metallica's 1996 album Load. It debuted on the U.S. Mainstream Rock charts at number fifteen."Ain't My Bitch" gained media attention and notoriety due to its title. Vocalist/Lyricist James Hetfield later explained that the 'bitch' in the song does not refer to...
"; instead they stick to familiar topics such as religion, death, war, and serial killers."
Reception
Diabolus in Musica was released on June 9, 1998 by
American RecordingsAmerican Recordings is a Los Angeles-based record label headed by record producer Rick Rubin. The label's most successful artists include Slayer, The Black Crowes, Danzig, Tom Petty, Johnny Cash, and System of a Down.-Company History:...
. In its first week of release, the album sold 46,000 copies in the United States and debuted at number 31 on the
Billboard 200The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling new music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
Chart.
As of August 16, 2006 the album has sold 290,000 copies in the United States.
Reviewing 2003 Slayer box set
Soundtrack to the ApocalypseSoundtrack to the Apocalypse is a box set by the American thrash metal band Slayer. It was released with three CDs plus one DVD or four CDs plus one DVD...
, Adrien Begrand of
PopMattersPopMatters is an international webzine of cultural criticism that covers many aspects of popular culture. PopMatters publishes reviews, interviews, and detailed essays on most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, comics, sports, theater,...
dubbed the album "a unique record, as Slayer adopts many of the characteristics of the burgeoning nu metal scene (tuned down guitars, murky chord structures, churning beats), and incorporating it with their trademark sound. It's as if they're stepping in to show the young bands how to do it right, as songs like 'Bitter Peace', 'Death's Head', and the terrific 'Stain of Mind' blow away anything that young pretenders like
SlipknotSlipknot may refer to:* Slipknot , a metal band from Des Moines, Iowa, USA** Slipknot , the debut album by Slipknot** "Slipknot", first song on their first demo Mate. Feed. Kill...
have put out."
However, not all reviewers were so positive. Reviewing Slayer's 2001 album
God Hates Us AllGod Hates Us All is the eighth studio album by American thrash metal band Slayer. Released on September 11, 2001, the album received mixed critical reviews, although it entered the Billboard 200 at number 28...
,
Blabbermouth.net{Infobox Website| name = Blabbermouth.netsite two months after the meeting. After a year Krgin felt comfortable going "live." The initial "primitive" version of the site was launched on March 3, 2001. In October of the same year Monte Conner, a friend of Krgin, and a Roadrunner Records artist and...
reviewer Borijov Krgin described
Diabolus in Musica as "a feeble attempt at incorporating updated elements into the group's sound, the presence of which elevated the band's efforts somewhat and offered hope that Slayer could refrain from endlessly rehashing their previous material for their future output." In a 1998 review,
New York Times Ben Ratliff complained: "Eight of the 11 songs on Diabolus in Musica, a few of which were played at the show, are in the same gray key, and the band's rhythmic ideas have a wearying sameness too." Songs from the album are rarely played live following the return of drummer
Dave LombardoDave Lombardo is a Cuban American heavy metal drummer best known for his work with American thrash metal band Slayer. He has performed with Slayer on seven albums, including their 2006 release Christ Illusion, for which he received critical praise...
in 2001.
Track listing
Japanese edition
-
- Australian Edition has not got track # 8
Personnel
- Tom Araya
Tom Araya is a Chilean American musician, best known as the bassist and vocalist of the American thrash metal band Slayer....
– bass, vocals
- Jeff Hanneman
Jeffery John "Jeff" Hanneman is a guitarist and a founding member of the American thrash metal band Slayer. Hanneman grew up in Los Angeles in a family of war veterans, and his fascination with warfare is attributed to his upbringing...
– guitar
- Kerry King
Kerry Ray King is an American guitarist, best known as one of the founding members of American thrash metal band Slayer.-Biography:...
– guitar
- Paul Bostaph
Paul Bostaph is a heavy metal drummer, who has played for the bands Forbidden, Slayer, Testament, Exodus and Systematic. He is from Newark, California and currently drums for Testament....
– drums
- Rick Rubin
Frederick Jay "Rick" Rubin is an American record producer and, as of mid-2009, the co-head of Columbia Records....
– producer
- Howie Weinberg – mastering
- Greg Gordon – engineer
|
Brian Davis – assistant engineer
John Tyree – assistant engineer
Sebastian Haimerl – assistant engineer
Allen Sanderson – assistant engineer
Exum – photography
Frank – art direction
Wade Goeke – assistant engineer |