You may or may not have heard of Slayer. Within Metal circles they are considered to be one of the "Big Four" Thrash Bands, alongside Metallica, Megadeth and Anthrax. While this is very America-centric (and ignores bands such as Kreator, Destruction and Sabbat) it is well accepted and little disputed. Slayer are very much the darkest of the four, building very much on the "Satanic" blueprint established by bands such as Venom and even though Megadeth have at times been drawn into darker "Satanic" themes with songs such as The Conjuring. Interestingly with Slayer it has been widely shown that Tom Araya (vocalist / bassist) is a committed Catholic and with Megadeth, Dave Mustaine has come out a being a born again Christian. Tom Araya would go as far as to say that there is a lot of darkness in the world and these are the themes he picks upon.

So, and especially for those of you who are not familiar with Slayer, here is a sample and I dare you to listen to it to the end or at least until 2:40, just after the end of the introduction.

WARNING BOTH VIDEOS IN THIS POST CONTAIN FLASHING LIGHTS!

It is loud, it is aggressive and it is ballsy! BTW I have chosen such an old recording because the four guys (one of whom - Jeff Hanneman the blond guitarist) - passed away a few years ago after long term complications following a spider bite in South America) were very young and it was much rawer and packed with more energy than later recordings. I just wanted to capture the raw power that is Slayer.

I stated in the title that Slayer are good for you mental health and this is an absolute truth, although it might not be just Slayer as I will illustrate. Very simply if you are angry, frustrated and wound up and you stick this into your brain (with earphones ideally) then the anger and the aggression in the music literally leeches all of that negativity away and leaves you floating with the fairies - maybe not literally concerning the latter part, but you get the idea. 

It is such a release and the raw power of the music is so potent that there is nothing better. Concerning Slayer specifically I have a live double CD "A Decade of Aggression,' released in 1991. The first CD is an entire uninterrupted concert and the second a mixture of live recordings, two or three song snippets from other concerts. 

There was an occasion in Kosovo, when I had a very negative experience that made me extremely angry and frustrated - I think it might have been the occasion I was chased out of a village I was trying to help and the head man accused me of being a Serbian spy. Whatever the occasion, it doesn't really matter, as soon as I could I went out for a walk and plugged my cassette recording of the first CD into my walkman and then wired it straight into my brain with my earphone before pressing play. At 45 minutes the entire concert is a non-stop assault of aggression and raw totally untamed metal and it started with the very song that I have included above. When I say I walked, I more stomped my anger in tune with what I was listening too and by the time the first side of the cassette was done complete peace had descended on me. Slayer had literally broken my anger.

Many years later I had a similar experience, listening to "Dying Alive" a live recording by Kreator. Mama_Rah and I had received some very bad news on our journey to have children and were both devastated. She was at work and I was home alone and so very angry that I just reached for the loudest and angriest recording that I had to hand. By now I had Slayer on MP3 and through my computer it just wouldn't cut it - I needed to move, I needed to stop and I needed to shout and scream at God and anybody and everybody else in earshot. So Kreator it was.

Here is a sample

These are not the only times I have experienced such a release from such aggressive music, but are probably the most dramatic and so it comes highly recommended. 

Given the state of my current mental health maybe I need to make some me time and just thrash my brains to pieces for an hour or two.

That sounds like such a f**king good idea tbh

And on that note as always stay safe and well my friends.