File Under: Metal rating: A- tracks 1. Darkness Of Christ 2. Disciple 3. God Send Death 4. New Faith 5. Cast Down 6. Threshold 7. Exile 8. Seven Faces 9. Bloodline 10. Deviance 11. War Zone 12. Here Comes The Pain 13. Payback related links Slayer

When people think metal, they think Slayer, or at least they should. Slayer is the only band the decided they didn’t care if metal was cool or not, they just knew it was the only thing they wanted to play. It was the music they love.

With God Hates Us All, the lyrical structure get a lot more simplistic, but keep the same edge. Tackling issues with religion for the most part, Tom Araya screams hard-hitting line after hard-hitting line. The guitar tandem of Kerry King and Jeff Hannemen blaze through the tracks, which are all written by the two, with razor sharp precision.

People will undoubtedly complain about the reduced vocabulary on the album, but as King stated, "I wanted this album to be more street...how I normally talk." With this in mind, it’s nice to listen to a Slayer album without a dictionary there for the first few listens. Same message, same music, just simple wordings...can’t go wrong with that.

Samuel Barker is Senior Editor. Contact him at suma@rockzone.com.