8. God Hates Us All
Slayer are no strangers to controversy. Their albums feature songs that empathise with the perspectives of Auschwitz's Doctor Mengele and a Jihadi terrorist, for instance. But their biggest moment in the media spotlight came with the unforeseen fact that their album - already confrontationally titled God Hates Us All - was released on the same day as the September 11 attacks. Regardless of the impact of this interesting piece of trivia, the album itself is a pretty solid effort by Slayer's standards. It is undoubtedly a step-up from the two releases that preceded it. It marks a return to the raw aggression that marks their best and earliest albums (which consequently top this list), dropping the experimentation and occasional grabs at accessibility that marred much of the band's 90s output, and features one of their best ever tracks in the Grammy-nominated Disciple. It is far more powerful than Divine Intervention, and it doesn't mis-step as often as Diabolus In Musica. However, despite its positives, King was the chief songwriter on GHUA and it shows. The tracks frequently feel like rehashes of older ideas in the band's discography, an indication that Hanneman (who wrote many of the classics) was the songwriter with the more progressive ideas. The continuing absence of Lombardo is also telling, and by this stage he was publicly showing up Bostaph with his chaotically experimental gig as the drummer for Mike Patton's avant-metal freakout supergroup Fantômas. As noted, though, GHUA signalled a return to more extreme pastures for a band in danger of losing its way during a fairly average 90s period. Their other two new millennial releases would build on this platform excellently.