Slayer - "Dead Skin Mask" - From the Album Seasons in the Abyss

Don't get me wrong, because I'll say it upfront, this is a good song, one of Slayer's best. And--as if it had to be stated--I'm not squeamish, not about lyrical content, anyway. But "Dead Skin Mask" is a little bit disappointing to me, too. It's mostly about the child's voice, which is it seems mixed purposely, the first time you hear it, to scare the crap out of you. I'm no production expert, but something about the way that voice is mixed, makes it seem as if it's coming at your ears from outside the song. One moment you're listening to thrash metal, the next there's a kid caterwauling in the corner of your bedroom, or in the back seat of your car. It continues to startle you even after the first time.

And that's to the good. But there are a couple things. 1) is that the child's voice is no child's voice, but belonged instead to a buddy of the band who read through and then had the results digitally hiked in pitch. So sounds good, just not real, and that's where I think Slayer maybe failed the authenticity test, that, I don't know, someone like Cop Shoot Cop passed, when they splattered pig's blood on the sleeves of their 7" EP.

But also 2) which is that Ed Gein, I know hard to believe given how famous he is in punk rock and metal lyrics, only killed two people, and more to the point here, didn't kill any children. And he didn't lock people up in basements Buffalo-Bill-style, either, from whence you might hear a voice whining "I don't want to play any more" if that's how it goes.

And let me stress: it's their song, they can arrange it how they wish, but it's here that Slayer perhaps fails the gory research test that they themselves passed so notably with "Angel of Death." Part of the thing, at least for me, about the-metal-band-sticks-all-the-lived-with-horror-back-in-the-face-of-society thing is that it's gotta be true.

Otherwise, they're just Steve Albini.

File under: Ed Gein, star