Anyone who's been to a Slayer show can attest to the havoc that erupts when Kerry King speed-picks the opening to "Angel of Death." For the zealot, nothing released after Reign in Blood, the album that spawned the spiteful hymn, compares. Slayer's latest, God Hates Us All, is a predictably a much different beast than their 1986 classic. The scattered breed of metal-heads, punks, and skinheads that once deified them won't appreciate low-tuned guitars laid over the odd hip-hop beat, but still, Slayer never betrays their defining characteristics.
King and Hanneman solos are still of the whacked-out, King/Hanneman variety, and Tom Araya belts out syllables as fast as drummer Paul Bostaph hammers out beats. Rather than achieve break-neck speed from beginning to end, the songs themselves are geared more for Bostaph to prove over and over that he's the best drummer in metal (that includes previous Slayer drummers). God Hates Us All gives metal fans a new watermark.
