Slayer

The Vinyl Conflict (American/Sony)

The petroleum platter’s improbable comeback here crowns a genre propagated in the 1980s by cassettes, a sticker on The Vinyl Conflict‘s shrink-wrap bearing the better part of Slayer’s grooved recoronation: “All 10 American Recordings albums remastered from the original analog tapes on 180-gram audiophile vinyl.” Compact discs don’t give the L.A. thrash metal quartet much bass response, but on Rick Rubin’s greatest production trifecta – Reign in Blood (1986), South of Heaven (1988), and Seasons in the Abyss (1990) – vinyl’s tautness allows the music to get inside your hockey mask without shredding the ear holes. Tom Araya’s bass pops like Motown, a heartbeat beat again by Dave Lombardo’s slave-ship drum lash. Closing Reign in Blood with the hara-kiri title track, then segueing into South of Heaven‘s opening namesake underscores the dark magic of metal’s Beatles. Double-LP Decade of Aggression Live (1991) loses the packaging award to its black-metal-CD-case counterpart, and while “Dead Skin Mask” bleeding into “Seasons in the Abyss” will melt your turntable cover at the end of the second side, multiple sources on the second record stem the molten flow of the first disc. Produced by the band, 1994’s Divine Intervention suffers disjointed speed-cacophony despite the ensuing tour proving the veracity of “Killing Fields,” “Dittohead,” and “213.” Tempos double to hardcore on Undisputed Attitude (1996), Slayer’s punk Jeff Hanneman trying his hand at aggro spews (“Can’t Stand You”) among covers of D.I., a Minor Threat (“Guilty of Being White”), and dog-awful Stooges BM, “I’m Gonna Be Your God.” Rubin drops the ball on 1998’s Diabolus in Musica, with its homogenous alt-rock (hello, Soundgarden), so he’s out for God Hates Us All three years later, a ranting return to form despite few hooks (“Bloodline”) and little bass response. Christ Illusion (2006), with its original LP art restored, and last year’s World Painted Blood complete Slayer’s nü-millennial threepeat.

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This article appears in December 17 • 2010.

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San Francisco native Raoul Hernandez crossed the border into Texas on July 2, 1992, and began writing about music for the Chronicle that fall, debuting with an album review of Keith Richards’ Main Offender. By virtue of local show previews – first “Recommendeds,” now calendar picks – his writing’s appeared in almost every issue since 1993.