Slayer, and Hatebreed

There's the dark, molten pit filled with mutilated carcasses from which metal first sprang -- and then there are the hip-hop scratches, funky haircuts and whining about mommy. About time someone said it: Thank God for Slayer!

The veteran thinking man's speed-metalers remain true to the former, steadfast in their unrelenting spitefulness toward Christianity and passionate in their white trash hesher love of violence and chaos. Impervious to how the world of metal has changed around them, Slayer continues to dish out their mechanized thrash and unholy diatribes with little variation. I mean, no one really wants the dudes from Slayer to start experimenting with the formula, do they?

Seething with the same sort of malevolence is Hatebreed, a gang of vicious-looking, tattooed, baseball-cap-sporting thugs from Connecticut, who are perhaps the best (along with Poison the Well) and most successful (having toured with Ozzfest, Sepultura and Slayer) metal-core outfit ever. A zillion bands have copied their style, but most of those bands all stink like a pig feces lagoon. The real deal, Hatebreed's indignant masterpiece was 1997's Satisfaction Is the Death of Desire. Their recent The Rise of Brutality is a concise, 32-minute-long skull fuck.