are back! Sort of. While their retirement hasn't been revoked , the fact remains that one of 's most iconic bands are back where they belong; on stages thrilling thousands of metalheads every night. To celebrate that fact, we've unearthed the 20 greatest Slayer songs of all time - and the stories behind them - to create the ultimate guide to one of thrash metal's fiercest champions.
Slayer’s debut album, , kicked off with malicious heavy metal intent via opening song , but by the third track they were already mixing things up. was where Slayer eased their foot off ’s accelerator and allowed their influences to come to the surface. In three and a half minutes, it revealed how this newfangled thrash business was a conglomerate incorporation of 70s hard rock like UFO and Black Sabbath, West Coast punks Dead Kennedys and Suicidal Tendencies, and parallel thrash metal contemporaries such as Exodus.
The song also acted as an introduction and blueprint for the chromatic, half-stepping, creepycrawling riff sequence that the band were still exploiting at points until the very end. Argue among yourselves about who integrated hardcore punk into thrash first, but proves that Slayer did it darker and more malevolently than anyone else. Kerry King has never been shy about saying is filled with “fucking here and there”.
And that Maiden worship is never more evident than on , a song the guitarist wrote from top to bottom. Just listen to the main riff’s inky bounce and that classic .