Cory Strand — I Will Be Reborn

Have you ever wondered what Slayer’s brutal Trash classic "Reign In Blood" would sound like if played together in a mass?. Well "I Will Be Reborn" answers that question.  This CDR release finds Minneapolis based HNW/ stark ambient artist Cory Strand, taking this classic album & melding it into a mostly intense & totally over-whelming mass of sound.

The just over thirty six minute track kicks in with a mass of: colliding & battering drumming, shredding trash rhythm guitar swarms, hellish & searing lead guitar swirls, and the amassed chattering, raging  & screaming vocals of Tom Araya. The track starts to thin down & you can make out more divined song elements at the three minute mark, then around the around the three minute thirty mark we break down into the main riff from the “Raining Blood” track (possible one of the great prime evil metal riffs ever made) and it’s caustic rapid solo, before dropping-into a brief snippet of the track “Angle of Death”

Then at the five minute mark we drop into a thick amassed ‘wall’ of sound; and this pretty much stays fixed & unmoving for the rest of the track. From time to time you make out hints of guitar tone, drums & screaming, but mostly Strand creates this thick & boil sea of bloody sound, that’s seems to brutally batter 'n' wash your mind. It’s really difficult to classify what Strand has created here, as it’s not really HNW as it feels too flaming & fluid, yet it’s still very dense & thick in it’s attack. Maybe seared & thick guitar drone white-out, or brutal drone based noise.

The release comes with a second secret disc- a live bootleg recording of Slayer playing Nurnberg in the summer of 1985. The CDR  offers up 13 tracks in all, and these take in the cream-of- the-crop from the bands first three releases: Show No Mercy, Hell Awaits, and Haunting the Chapel ep. All told it’s a very conistent & heated live set. The extra disc comes in a slim-line cd case, that’s inside the see-through DVD case for the main release.

With "I Will Be Reborn" Strand has created a searing, blown-out & extreme noise drone tribute to this classic trash release. And though I can’t say it’s the most replayable, layered or rewarding release of Mr Stand's pretty much constantly growing discography. I must say I appreciate the overwhelming intensity of the track/release, and see the whole thing as worthy tribute to the very sad & early loss of Slayer's guitarist  Jeff Hanneman who died early this year