Slayer - God Hates Us All (2001)

   Probably many people thought that Slayer will be not able to reach the level of it's old and cultic period. But they've returned in 2001 with a record that counts extremely aggressive and heavy even if the band wasn't known about the softness of it's music.
   Though they of course couldn't exceed the themes they wrote in the '80s, "God Hates Us All" sounded quite impressive. Even the coincidence of the release date (9/11) and the secular events gave an authentic reference to the album title. The album is definitely not one of their fastest ones, but the clear and heavy sound compensed the lack of consant intense hammering. The unusually common blast beats also increased the heavy impression. Unlike Mr. Lombardo who was more into speed, Mr. Paul Bostaph liked to always change a bit in his drum play to make it more diverse. Anti-Christian topics were always returning features in Slayer lyrics, but now they had more focus on them and sounded more exaggerated. On the side of blast beats the very frequent appearence of the f-word was also something unusual about other Slayer albums, so it seems like the band wanted to emphatically show their aggression all-round. "God Hates Us All" is outrageous since the beginning, it's like an insane rampage that transfers the old school aggressiveness of the band into modern sound.