TS: Sleater-Kinney vs. Slayer

Slayer may hate God -- but they sure do love to talk about him.
By Laura Brahm

"God Hates Us All" is the name of a new album by the heavy metal band Slayer, released on September 11th. In light of the national soul-searching that's taken place since that day, it's an intriguing proposition even to those not normally inclined to look to screaming vocalists in sweat-soaked leathers for spiritual guidance. The evidence that God does not love us, after all, is considerable. You don't need to think as far back as the Holocaust to know that bad things happen everywhere, every day, and on an incomprehensible scale. When Slayer's latest effort caught my eye in a record store, then, it was refreshing to see someone making the case that God may not be a big, hug-dispensing Barney in the sky.

Slayer is credited with being one of the first groups, 20 years ago, to weld the bombast of metal to the speed and rhythm of punk. Lyrically, their contempt for God is matched in intensity only by their professions of lust for mayhem. Some fans take it as more than mere showmanship: Slayer is currently being sued for having incited, via their music, three teenage boys to murder and rape (in that order) a 15-year-old girl in California. The boys were in a metal band themselves and decided sacrificing a virgin to Satan might bring them some luck. (They were caught and each sentenced 25 years to life, so apparently it didn't work.)

Despite, or perhaps because of, their antipathy towards God, Slayer just won't shut up about Him. The songs on God Hates Us All have names like "Darkness of Christ," "Disciple," "God Send Death," and "New Faith." The lyrics, reproduced in a CD booklet designed to look like a bloodstained and defaced bible, are interspersed between passages from the Book of Job. It's sort of a Satanic attempt to rewrite the book, as if Job, instead of acquiescing to God, tells Him to fuck off.

"I reject all the biblical views of the truth / Dismiss it as the folklore of the times / I won't be force-fed prophecies / From a book of untruths for the weakest mind / I keep the bible in a pool of blood / So that none of its lies can affect me."

-- "New Faith"

In a society as secular as ours, however, Slayer's lyrics seem a bit overstated. Who are the members of Slayer - bitterly disillusioned Mennonites? And who is the audience for this record? The copious religious references seem a little peculiar coming from metal heads, who tend to be associated with suburban nihilism and big hair, not theological discourse. Most metal fans don't even know that Job isn't something you get fired from.

Moreover, it's hard to understand why Slayer and their followers get so worked up about rejecting Christian values, when American consumer culture already seems to have made short work of them. Rather than rejecting the mainstream, Slayer seems to embody it, to have stripped down and amplified -- figuratively and literally -- one hard kernel of American culture: senseless violence. Slayer's music is the gruesome aural equivalent of pro-wrestling to the death, a horror movie with plot and characters edited out.

"Death's design blood spattered wall / Face melting one vicious whore / Twisted figures flesh from bone / Down on your knees / You're screaming out / To die."

-- "God Send Death"

According to the band's web site "God Send Death" was inspired by a true crime novel about "murderous priests." But you'd never know it from reading the lyrics. Indeed, it's a challenge to understand what any of their songs are about. Like fundamentalist Christians, Slayer frequently speaks in an overblown, otherwordly language that only the converted can comprehend.

For that matter, Slayer seems to have more in common with the fundamentalists they despise than they'd care to admit. Namely, a belief in God -- a God who's not pleased with human behavior today. "He hates this place/ you know it's true He hates this race" ("Disciple"). Slayer's God takes misanthropy to a Zen-like degree: "Looking for the place where God speaks / Every time you find Him He just stabs you in the back again" ("Cast Down"). Unlike the parable that provides the namesake for this publication, when you meet Slayer's Buddha, he's gonna kill you.

In the tradition of God's retributive, Hebrew Bible persona, Slayer wants payback. They share with fundamentalist Christians the conviction that the world is on the brink of apocalypse and that soon the sinners -- for Slayer, that seems to mean anyone who has remotely annoyed them -- will get what they deserve. Armageddon is coming, but in Slayer's theological universe, Satan will be in charge, not Jesus. "Welcome to the horror of the revelation / Tell me what you think of your savior now … Tell me how it feels knowing chaos will never end / Tell me what it's like when the celebration begins" ("New Faith"). The oppressed still inherit the earth, it's just that they've switched teams.

Slayer's histrionics seem all the more two-bit after September 11, when the idea of destroying our society began to be taken seriously. Now, lyrics such as "Pessimist, terrorist targeting the next mark / Global chaos feeding on hysteria / Cut throat, slit your wrist, shoot you in the back fair game … Man made virus infecting the world / Self-destruct human time bomb" ("Disciple") pale in comparison to the actual events of that nature. Yahweh may hate us, but Allah (at least as understood by al Qaeda) hates us more. (In fact, recent events could signal the beginning of tough times for the entire heavy metal industry. Who needs a band named Anthrax when we have the real thing?)

What is it, then, that makes God the object of such relentless fascination and repulsion for Slayer and their minions? Is their preoccupation with God merely the byproduct of that cheap staple of metal spectacle, Satanism? Apparently not. One web site, slayerized.com, says: "Contrary to what some people may believe, Tom (Araya, the lead singer) IS NOT a satanist. He is actually a very religious person. And Tom didn't get that from strangers -- Tom's parents are very involved with the church, and when Tom was young he used to go to church all the time with his dad. And those memories are still with Tom, and religion is still a big part of his life."

Satanism, it seems, is beside the point. Just look at the story of Job. The Lord torments him mercilessly -- kills his family, takes all his possessions, covers him in sores -- just to win a bet with the Devil. After Job finally explodes at him, God sheepishly expresses his remorse and replaces Job's family and fortune. For Job, there was no discerning between God and Satan. Doesn't it make more sense in this instance, then, to rebel against him?

God is not consistently just; nor is he always good. Sometimes he's silent, sometimes he rages -- often according to what seems like nothing more than whim. He's the ultimate irresponsible parent, which could be why anger towards him resonates so much with Slayer's mostly-adolescent followers. While the faithful are content to attribute tragic events to God's mysterious ways, for Slayer it's no mystery: God hates us all.


Laura Brahm reviewed Motley Crue's first album for her high school newspaper. She is Killing the Buddha's books editor.

Does she miss the entire point that Slayer doesn't BELIEVE in God? And all their imagery is just satire?

Or am I missing the point of the article in the same way?

(Oh yeah, Slayer wins, duh)

Though Sleater-Kinney covering RiB in full would be pretty awesome. Or at least interesting, anyway.

(And I'll take God Hates Us All over The Woods, even)

I'm not sure how the other gents in the band feel about it, but I seem to remember reading an interview with (Slayer lead singer/bassist) Tom Araya that said he did in fact believe in a higher, non-infernal power. I'll see if I can find that.

Pretty heavy credentials.

Also, I love the idea that September 11th could make metal irrelevant.

Just as a

-- J.D. (aubade8...), December 10th, 2005.

well you're no rock and roll fun.

slayer haven't been terrbily interesting since 1992 I thinks.

I couldn't get into All Hands On The Bad One at all though, sorry.

or rock 'n roll vs. not. punk vs. not. blues vs. not.

Sleater-Kinney

s/k wins