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Slayer | God Hates Us All

The legend continues (even with regard to the ugly covers)
CD, American/Universal

Tekst: Martÿn ter Haar

Publicatiedatum: 24 november 2001

"You shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on earth under it, or that is in the water below. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations to those who hate me, but showing faithful love."
Slayer returns with 'Gods Hates Us All' teaching all those third and fourth generation metal bands that there is still only one. Not that that comes as a surprise: Slayer hasn't released a bad album in its career. Another tradition at first does seem to be broken: could 'God Hates Us All' really be the first Slayer album without an ugly cover ('Seasons In The Abyss' still is the standard by which all ugly album covers are measured)? But even here the legend continues: what seems to be the cover is just meant to shield the easily offended and those of us with good taste from the ugly as usual real cover.
So everything stays the same (which in case of vintage Slayer wouldn't be necessarily a bad thing)? No, because on 'God Hates Us All' it becomes apparent that Slayer know what those nu-metal kids are doing. They incorporate elements from those bands without ever losing their own style. The sound for instance is much heavier and crunchier than on previous albums, which all had that typicall dry Rick Rubin sound. 'God Hates Us All' was originally produced by Matt Hyde, the man responsible for Monster Magnet's last few albums. That turned out to be a step too far and a Rubin overseen remix followed, resulting in a hybrid sound. The songs themselves are a hybrid too, not only between trash and nu-metal, but also between the furious sound barrier breaking assaults of early albums and the slower, more sinister later albums.
These are all just details though. Ok, it are exactly those details make that Slayer is at the forefront of metal today, but what put them there in the first place is their songwriting abilities. Other bands might be faster or grunt deeper, there is still no band that sounds as naturally evil as Slayer. They don't need gothic strings from a keyboard for that, let alone corpse-paint. The band shows off it's arranging skills in new satanic masterpieces like 'God Send Death', 'Deviance' and especially 'Bloodline' and then blows away what still remains of the would-be competition with 'Exile' and 'Payback', tracks so aggressive that surely must be part of some tactical weapons agreement. After all these years, Slayer still reigns in blood.

http://www.kindamuzik.net/recensie/slayer/god-hates-us-all/1130/
Meer Slayer op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/slayer