Maps of Music

World Painted Blood (2009)

Where the lyrics of World Painted Blood take you, and where it was really made.

Four different covers, each showing a quarter of one map, combine into a single map of the earth painted red.

Key places

Recorded at The Pass in Los Angeles (2009)

Recording site Motown Recording Studios — The album was recorded in Los Angeles, California with producer Greg Fidelman from late January to March 2009. The credits list The Pass as the recording studio. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• World Painted Blood: eleventh studio album by American thrash metal band Slayer
• Released 3 November 2009 through American Recordings and Sony Music
• Produced by Greg Fidelman; executive producer Rick Rubin
• Eleven tracks on the album; 13 songs were recorded
• Only album the band made with Fidelman as producer
• Last album with the original lineup, including Jeff Hanneman and Dave Lombardo
• Hanneman died of liver cirrhosis in 2013; Lombardo was dismissed the same year

Background

• Fans anticipated the album after 2006's Christ Illusion
• Band members began revealing information about the album in early 2009
• First time the band wrote material in the studio rather than entering fully prepared with lyrics
• Hanneman wrote most of the lyrics and music
• Final album released through American Recordings
• Final collaboration with Rubin, who had worked with the band since Reign in Blood (1986)

Recording

• Recorded in Los Angeles, California with producer Greg Fidelman from late January to March 2009
• Kerry King said the album has a little bit of everything, more so than anything since Seasons
• Release pushed back to late summer 2009

Cover

• Four different artworks, each completing one-fourth of a map of the earth painted red
• Artwork revealed on 15 September 2009

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Formed in 1981 in Huntington Park, California by Kerry King, Jeff Hanneman, Dave Lombardo and Tom Araya.
• Started by playing covers of Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and Venom at parties and clubs in Southern California.
• Signed with Metal Blade Records after the song "Aggressive Perfector" appeared on Metal Massacre III.

Members

• Current lineup: Kerry King, Tom Araya, Paul Bostaph and Gary Holt; Holt joined in 2011 and became permanent after Hanneman's death in 2013.
• Former members include drummers Dave Lombardo (left three times) and Jon Dette.

Career

• Released twelve studio albums, including Reign in Blood (1986), widely described as one of the most influential thrash metal albums.
• Christ Illusion (2006) won a Grammy for "Eyes of the Insane", the band's first Grammy-related recognition.
• Disbanded in 2019 after a farewell tour and reunited for sporadic shows from 2024.
• Considered one of the "Big Four" of thrash metal alongside Metallica, Megadeth and Anthrax.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Generally positive reviews from music critics
• Metacritic: 78 out of 100, based on 11 reviews
• Classic Rock: the album offers a remarkable clarity of vision and strength of identity
• BBC's Greg Moffitt: wondered whether the band still had an album like this in them
• AllMusic's Thom Jurek: three and a half stars
• The A.V. Club's Leonard Pierce: A−
• PopMatters' Adrien Begrand: eight out of ten
• MusicOMH: four out of five stars
• Blabbermouth's Ryan Ogle: 7.5 out of 10

Reappraisal

• AllMusic: could be Reign In Blood Revisited, with early-style melody and blast beat drumming
• The A.V. Club: eclectic but never self-consciously so, and nearly seamless if placed after Seasons In The Abyss
• PopMatters: revisits the seminal styles of the 1986–88 heyday

Records

• US first week: 41,000 copies, number twelve on the Billboard 200
• 160,000 copies sold in the US as of February 2015
• US Top Hard Rock Albums: number two
• Germany: number seven
• UK Albums Chart: debuted at number 41
• Hate Worldwide nominated for Best Metal Performance in 2009, lost to Judas Priest's Dissident Aggressor
• Title track nominated the following year, lost to Iron Maiden's El Dorado

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · fr.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Each of the four covers displays one-fourth of a continental map illustrated with human skulls and bones.
• Psychopathy Red was first planned as a b-side, but after it became available on the internet the band added it to the track list.
• Psychopathy Red was released as a limited blood-red 7-inch vinyl on 18 April 2009 for the third annual Record Store Day.
• Hate Worldwide lost the Grammy to Dissident Aggressor, a song Slayer covered 22 years earlier on South of Heaven.
• The title track was said by the band to continue Final Six, an outtake from the previous album.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Maps of Ages ↗ (mapsofages.com)

Privacy · Contact