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Gonna have to toss my hat in with the Slayer camp, here. I won't touch on image, or statistical consistency, or anything like that, simply because for me, the experience of listening to a Slayer record is unlike nearly any metal record I have. They're not my favorite band. BUT. The really good parts of a Slayer record -- and I am thinking now of walking home yesterday from the subway, exhausted with holes straight through the soles of each shoe, and having "Raining Blood" seeth and swell up through my headphones -- invigorate me with an unholy Nietzschean rush of blood and fire unlike any other band I've heard.
It all sounds very silly, and it is, partly, but it's worth it. The words "hate" and "hateful" come to mind -- but those are not utterly precise. Because as destructive and violent a feeling as Slayer produces, it is incredibly joyful; all stress, all doubts, all feelings of exhaustion or weakness or mundane boredom are flushed out of the system, and for a moment there is only you, and the riff, and you are one and the same. It is an impulse felt by many over the years, and it is an unerring one: Slayer is the fucking greatest. |
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