It's here. It's finally fucking here. Today (February 5th), Kerry King has formally unveiled all the players in his new solo band, announced his first album post-Slayer, and dropped a crushing lead single called "Idle Hands."
For years, the pioneering thrash guitarist has been teasing a new band he's been working on since Slayer called it a day back in 2019. In 2022, King confirmed that ex-Slayer drummer Paul Bostaph was in the lineup, but he kept the rest of the members close to the chest.
Now, we know who the bona fide supergroup consists of. As revealed in an in-depth interview with Rolling Stone, King and Bostaph are joined by guitarist Phil Demmel (formerly of Machine Head, and briefly a part of Slayer's touring lineup in 2018), Hellyeah bassist and brother of Mastodon's Troy Sanders Kyle Sanders and, last but not least, vocalist Mark Osegueda of the almighty Death Angel.
All of those guys, mostly from the Bay Area thrash scene, appear on King's forthcoming debut solo album, fittingly titled From Hell I Rise, which is set to be released this spring.
The album was produced by Josh Wilbur (Korn, Avenged Sevenfold, Lamb of God) and King has repeatedly compared the music to that of his beloved old band — recently describing its sound as "an extension of Slayer."
Today, we get to hear for ourselves. King is previewing the album with lead single "Idle Hands," a fast-and-furious thrash burner that gives the people exactly what they want from King.
Blast it above via YouTube.
"'Idle Hands' are what I've been doing the last four years," King told Rolling Stone of the single. "That and 'From Hell I Rise' have been my frame of mind in the last four-and-a-half years."
As for the decision to call the band Kerry King, the guitarist explained, "It was going to be King's Reign for a long time, which is really cool. But even with that one, I went to the guys, like, 'I'm not a vain dude. I don't want my name to be a part of it.' We talked about Blood Reign for a while, but it didn't work. Every time I came up with anything remotely cool, it was taken by some obscure band in Eastern Europe. It became Kerry King because I love that logo."
From Hell I Rise is due out May 17th.
