World Painted Blood

Nine studio albums, thousands of live shows and nearly three decades into a career that's made them one of the biggest and most important metal bands in the world, the members of Slayer know exactly what kind of music they make: brutal but beautiful, punishing yet precise. A fresh Slayer record is a thing of terror but also one of trust: You can depend on what you're getting even if you're unprepared for it.

World Painted Blood, the highly anticipated follow-up to 2006's Christ Illusion, is one of Slayer's most impressive efforts yet - a vicious, uncompromising look at what's broken in our society and how frighteningly powerless we are to fix it. King says World is "more well-rounded than the last couple of albums." Lombardo calls it "a speed metal record with emotion." Anyone with earls will think it's an accomplishment of a major kind.