anyone on the other side of a soldier's gun has inspired Slayer to record their most vital album in years." Chris Campion of The Observer stated that the album is "their most rigorously conceived and focused for years." Not all critics were positive. Chris Steffen of Rolling Stone magazine dismissed the album, noting that it "mines much of the same territory as its predecessor, God Hates Us All, just without the memorable riffs." Jamie Thomson of The Guardian described the album as "wholly disappointing," and thought the band sounded "unwilling to ditch the nu-metal tendencies that have made much of their recent output so resistible." KNAC.com contributor Peter Atkinson felt that the album "demands OUTRAGE —more calculatingly so than any other album the band has done," and that "that, in a nutshell, is Christ Illusions glaring weakness." Album artwork Several aspects of Christ Illusions content and promotion generated adverse attention and publicity. In particular the cover art, painted by Larry Carroll and depicting a mutilated, stoned Jesus. Carroll, who had painted the cover artwork to previous Slayer albums such as Reign in Blood, South of Heaven and Seasons in the Abyss, resumed duties on Christ Illusion. Working solely from track names and formative lyrics, Carroll produced the original on a 4-by-4-foot slab of wood using a combination of media. Having requested an image of Christ in "a sea of despair", King commented that an early version seemed as though Christ was "chilling out in the water". The final image portrays Christ with a missing eye and amputated hands, and standing amidst a sea of blood and severed heads. Araya deemed this version "much better because he looked like a drug addict!", while King admired the artwork enough to purchase the original. Certain album pre-orders gave fans the chance to win one of ten autographed lithographs of the artwork, while an alternative, non-graphic cover was made to appease retailers who had refused to stock the original version. World Entertainment News Network reported Slayer were attracting controversy through issuing the artwork. Joseph Dias, general secretary of the Mumbai Christian group Catholic Secular Forum, (CSF) took "strong exception" to the original album artwork, and issued a memorandum to Mumbai's police commissioner in protest. Chris Steffen of Rolling Stone magazine commented that "The album art takes it all over the top with an image axeman Kerry King dubs 'Christ in a Sea of Despair'",