Slayer have one of the most diehard fanbases in metal history, and in some ways, they're also the ultimate band's band. Intensity begets intensity, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a metal musician out there who doesn't love at least one Slayer record.
Metal Hammer asked several of the now-defunct thrash titans' peers and disciples to pick their single favorite Slayer song, and Lamb of God guitarist Mark Morton was one of them. See his selection below.
"Mandatory Suicide"
I love the cadence of the vocal — without being particularly melodic, it's still really catchy. Dare I say it's like a hip-hop kind of thing, where there's a pattern to lock into. The South of Heaven album was so awesome to me. I liked Reign In Blood, but it was a little too punk and fast for me.
I was listening to hip-hop and into Testament and stuff like that, and on South of Heaven they got into this slowed-down groove, the same way rap does. That resonated with me, and I think parts of that song, in the verse particularly, have that kind of emotion to them — that lope, that kind of pulse.
The lyrics are super-scary and dark and crazy and awesome, like Slayer. The bit at the end where he's kind of got this ominous, devil track, spoken-word thing over the whole outro — with the guitars wailing and echoing — it just sounds like a nightmare. When you can create that kind of atmosphere with just sound, that's art to me.
