By Martin Popoff
Back from Europe, and now firmly ensconced in touring their vitriolic God Hates Us All opus here on North American soil, Slayer are just doing what they do best, metal purity flung faceward into adoring crowds of extreme metal munchers. The album has gotten nothing but effusive, enthusiastic reviews, Slayer headbanging fast, hard and angry through a batch of tunes that together find new reasons to hate seven ways to Sunday, whether it be people that are of particular annoyance or dog-tired dogma.
Soft-spoken speaker and venomous vocalist Tom Araya introduces us to Slayer's God. "The main difference would be the vocals, which are more aggressive, and also the lyric style. They're a little more one-on-one. The vocals are that way because basically it's what the songs required (laughs). They're very aggressive and angry songs, and it would defeat the purpose if I sang them very mmeellooww (laughs)."
In terms of songwriting chemistry, Slayer albums tend to tilt one way or another depending on whether most of the songs are Kerry King's or whether they're mostly Jeff Hanneman's. " Yes, I'm sure you figured it out. It's pretty easy. Actually lyrically, a lot of the songs are written by Kerry. Musically it was a split between Jeff and Kerry. You can pretty much tell who leans which way. Kerry is along the lines of Reign In Blood type material, more aggressive and fast, thrash-type stuff. And Jeff does more of the grunge-type, slower, heavy, low bottom-end type riffs, very melodic riffs. And lyrically, Kerry has a tendency to lean toward religious stuff, and then Jeff leans more toward war stuff. Kerry is a self-proclaimed atheist, same with Jeff."
SLAYER - God Heeds The Call Page 2