Slayer exhumes classic album

Jagermeister Music Tour, Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax, Sat. Oct. 9, 7 p.m., Toyota Pavilion at Montage Mountain (1000 Montage Mountain Road, Scranton). Tickets: $22.25-$68, LiveNation.com, venue box office. Info: www.slayer.net, www.jagermeistermusictour.com

When we spoke with Slayer last summer, the titans of thrash were amped up to release their 11th album “World Painted Blood” and undertake a set of tours and appearances to help promote it to the metal masses.

But a lot can happen in 15 months.

A performance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” perfectly timed for “World Painted Blood’s” release last November, was shelved. A few shows, then entire tours, were wiped out. All thanks to Slayer vocalist and bassist Tom Araya’s injured back, which required a surgery known as Anterior Cervical Discectomy with Fusion.

By the time Araya had healed, Slayer had missed the immediate opportunity to tour behind “World Painted Blood.” Then the band, along with Metallica, Anthrax and Megadeth, shocked the heavy metal community by announcing a string of shows in Europe, for the first time celebrating together on stage their longtime lofty status as the Big Four of thrash metal.

Araya’s aggressive head-banging, as well as a lot of “WBP” tracks, have fallen by the wayside when it comes to Slayer’s current tour. The band, however, is using the Jagermeister Music Tour, which on Saturday, Oct. 9 hits Toyota Pavilion at Montage Mountain, to showcase another album from its catalog: “Seasons In The Abyss,” the 1990 release regarded, along with “Reign In Blood” and “South of Heaven,” as one of the outfit’s peak studio outputs. Playing “Seasons” this fall, drummer Dave Lombardo says, was first pitched by management and promoter types.

“I think because we had to postpone the tours, they wanted to keep the interest of the fans, and they asked us to do that, and Megadeth to do, what is it, ‘Hangar 18?’” says Lombardo, referring to a single from “Rust In Peace,” the 1990 album Megadeth is recreating on the Jager tour. Reminded of the actual album title, Lombardo says, “Yeah, whatever, the ‘Peace’ album they’re doing. So it’s kind of cool.”

Playing all of “Seasons” has been a blessing and curse for Lombardo, who says he is open to the idea of playing another Slayer album in its entirety on a future tour; in 2004 the band played all of “Reign In Blood.”

“Yeah. Sure. I wouldn’t mind. I don’t mind doing it,” he says, noting that band had never before played the “Seasons” track “Temptation” on stage. “The only thing that bothers me about doing something like that (is) the fact that you can’t change the set around. I’m so tired of playing these same friggin’ songs that I’m going to have to play for the next three and a half weeks. But, hey, that’s the way it is.”

More songs from “World Painted Blood” will get their in-concert due in the near future, says Lombardo.

“Absolutely. It’s been even thought that we do the entire ‘World Painted Blood’ album,” he shares. “That would be fun.”

In addition to inadvertently spawning Slayer’s “Seasons” reprisal, Araya’s injury has led to some improvements in the frontman’s performances, from Lombardo’s point of view.

“He’s doing really, really good,” Lombardo says of Araya’s back. “It’s not a good thing that he can’t head-bang, because no one wants to go through what he went through. What’s really good about this series of events that Tom went through is that he’s really focusing on his bass playing and his vocals, and he’s been able to hit, recently, the opening of ‘Angel of Death.’ There’s a scream, and he’s been able to hit it. I almost stopped playing and just looked at him and went, ‘Wow!’”

Anticipation has been high for the tour which will swing through Scranton this weekend, partially because it revisits the lineup of 1991’s stateside Clash of the Titans tour, but also because of persistent rumors that the Big Four will tour the U.S. during the summer of 2011. While Lombardo won’t go as far as telling us that Metallica/Slayer/Megadeth/Anthrax American dates are definite, he hints that that’s the case.

“Everybody’s gung-ho for this, including myself,” the drummer says. “Hey, we’re going to be playing coliseums or two nights at an arena. It’s gonna be huge . …” And when rattling off Slayer’s post-Jagermeister itinerary, Lombardo mentions Slayer will “do the whole Metallica thing when it happens in the summer.” Asked for more details, Lombardo notes, “Some guy said that Metallica is going to join us and do the Big Four here in the States. But I don’t know, it could be a rumor. I don’t know for a fact. I never heard anything from management.”

Fair enough. Whether or not that buzzed-about tour comes to fruition, the fact that the four groups — some of which have had bad blood spilled between them, much of it due to Megadeth founder and ousted Metallica member Dave Mustaine’s tendency to run his mouth — played together in Europe is already part of metal lore.

“I never thought that could ever happen,” Lombardo says. “I thought Metallica was maybe too big. But it’s kinda cool that Metallica is kind of reacquainting themselves with their metal fans, and they’re recognizing that, ‘Hey, we’re not up there alone.’ Although they did play songs that were more accessible than what Slayer did, they’re still metal. They started in the same state that we did, although they were in Northern California and we were in Southern.”

That any, never mind all, of the major thrash bands — a list which should include a still-thriving Testament — are still playing to large audiences around the world, is quite impressive. Lombardo is asked if he senses a renewed sense of energy for classic heavy metal, especially in the U.S.

“A new energy to what is real,” he says. “Tenacious D had the perfect song (lyrics): ‘You can’t kill the metal.’ And it’s true. It’s the only style of music that’s gone through everything, and it’s still going. Grunge isn’t around anymore. Disco. What other styles are there? Punk? There’s still some punk rockers out there, but nothing like what it was.

“So it’s just real. It’s real music.”

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