Artist: Kerry King
Title: “Residue” (Single)
Label: Reigning Phoenix Music
Date: 4/12/2024
Rating: 4/5

With just about a month to go before the release of the Kerry King debut album “From Hell I Rise”, its time to get another taste from it as the folks at Reigning Phoenix Music have delivered another single from the album. It was only a couple of months ago that I gave their first single “Idle Hands” a spin and clicking the hyperlinked text will let you see that one. As mentioned before, Kerry King has assembled a solid lineup that features Phil Demmel (Machine Head), Kyle Sanders (Hell Yeah), Mark Osegueda (Death Angel) and Paul Bostaph (Slayer) for the new album and touring cycle. While I don’t like to use the term “super group” since its been overused so very often, this truly amounts to one considering the lengthy Metal resumes that each of the players have coming in to the group. The latest track is titled “Residue” and starts off with some solid, driving drumming patterns from Bostaph before the truly head-banging riff takes over. As a drummer myself, I love the solid double-bass pattern that flows along with the riffs and as I listened a little more closely trying to envision this in the live sense I could almost envision the pit forming. Demmell is putting some great lead guitar work into the material while Mark sounds awesome and one of the main things that I like is that its not a Slayer 2 band but a group that’s managed to bring their individuality together and make it something special. Moments of thrashiness on top of slow chugging groove that ends up quite satisfying. I felt that I enjoyed both “Residue” and “Idle Hands” equally and cannot wait to hear the full on release. So far so good but if you are going to be stoic about this material not bringing you right into the Slayer moshpit then you might be a hard sell of it. Don’t be that Metalhead. Instead, sit back and crank it up and enjoy these players united for new Metal material.

Overall I think more of King’s fans will take to the material than will not. Considering the background of the lineup you’d be doing yourself a disservice by ignoring it. I liked that I’ve heard and will be interested in discussing the whole “From Hell I Rise” album with you at some point in the future. Of course I will be omitting “Idle Hands” and “Residue” from that narrative since I’ve already said my piece about them.

Official: https://kerrykingofficial.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KerryKingOfficial/