Kerry King has finished enough of his second solo album to start bragging about it, and not enough to be allowed to say what is on it.
Speaking on the "100 Songs That Define Heavy Metal" podcast hosted by Metal Blade Records boss Brian Slagel, the SLAYER guitarist gave the follow-up to 2024's "From Hell I Rise" an unambiguous verdict while carefully saying almost nothing.
"I'm excited about it. There's so many, so many fun things going around about this record in my camp," he said. "Josh Wilbur's doing it again, and my publicist would knock me the fuck out if I gave up too much. But I think it's a wonderful extension of the first album. I think everyone that's been a fan of mine throughout history is gonna like it entirely. The intro, to me, is one of the best intros I ever made up, so I'm looking forward to hearing what people say about it once it comes out. It's a slam dunk. It's fucking crushing."
"An extension of the first album" is exactly what he said he was aiming for a year ago, when he was asked whether he might push further into punk. "I think punk was pretty well covered on 'From Hell I Rise', from 'Everything I Hate About You' to 'Two Fists', two very different punk styles," he said then. "So it wouldn't surprise me if that shows up 'cause it's part of my history. And I think, overall, my thought would be just make an extension from what 'From Hell I Rise' is, just keep doing things the same way, see what the next 10 or 12 sound like."
The material has been sitting ready for a while. In that same earlier interview King said the band had a full record's worth written and that he was working through the lyrics, sending them to singer Mark Osegueda song by song — Osegueda's verdict on the first one was that the lyrics were "vicious".
King is unusually warm about Wilbur, who produced the debut and has worked with LAMB OF GOD and AVENGED SEVENFOLD. "A lot of musicians say he's like the extra person in the band; he was like member number six. And he really was. His skill at the Pro Tools rig — he's so fast. He would get on his computer, and I'm just sitting there with my guitar, trying to figure out how to play something better. And he's just doing something on his computer, and he's, like, bam, bam, bam, bam. 'How's this?' I'm, like, 'I don't even know where you are.'"
The band is Osegueda of DEATH ANGEL on vocals, Phil Demmel on guitar, Kyle Sanders on bass and Paul Bostaph on drums. Its last show was the Summerfest set in Milwaukee on July 4, where King stepped in for MEGADETH. A tour behind the new album is expected in early 2027.