Divine Intervention

Originally released on 27 September 1994.
The album's production posed a challenge to the label, as its marketing situation drew arguments over its explicitness; to give them time to decide over its style, the band released the live album Decade of Aggression. Since it was released nearly four years after its predecessor Seasons in the Abyss (1990), vocalist Tom Araya said there was more time spent on its production compared to the band's previous albums. Although so much time was spent on its production, Kerry King has expressed his disapproval over the album's final mix, saying it should have had more attention.
Divine Intervention was the band's first album to feature Paul Bostaph, replacing original drummer Dave Lombardo. Its songs' origins came not only from television shows, but were also inspired by various other subjects including Rush Limbaugh, Holocaust architect Reinhard Heydrich, and serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.
The cover artwork was painted and designed by Wes Benscoter as a re-imaging of the band's early "Slayergram" graphic.
The album sleeve features for the second time the backronym Satan Laughs As You Eternally Rot. This phrase was first used on the vinyl edition of the album Show No Mercy where it was carved into the runout groove of the record.[
Tom Araya said that "when we did Divine Intervention, this was the last conference we ever had with a record label where they sat us down and sold us the idea of how they wanted to do "Divine", and how they were going to do this with the cover... and all these different ideas for the album. Then one guy looked at us and said, 'But we need a hit song.' And we said, 'But you've got eleven songs, and if you can't find a hit in one of them then you're shit out of luck because that's what we're giving you.' So we're like saying to them, 'Right, you write the fucking hit song and we'll record it.' That shut the guy up and that was the last time we had any kind of meetings like that!"[2]
Araya described "For this one, I just kind of got inspired by watching TV. That gave me a whole lot of ideas. The whole idea about the dude with Slayer in his arms was brought about because reality is scarier than anything you can make up."[3] The production of the album posed as a challenge to the record company, "how to market a group whose gore-soaked, extreme music is anathema to radio programmers."
Despite receiving mixed reviews from critics, Divine Intervention peaked at number eight on the US Billboard 200 and number 15 on the UK Albums Chart, selling over 93,000 copies in its first week of sales.
It was later certified gold in the United States and Canada, and was followed by the EP Serenity in Murder.
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