This is the album that can be credited with influencing every form of extreme metal that exists today. The expression "there is nothing new under the sun" is so true. Death metal, black metal, even power metal...all of those genres have stolen riffs from Slayer's Show No Mercy. I so love this album. Some of the vocals are really dated (80s-style screaming!), but the riffs and production are so evil! The intro to "Metalstorm/Face the Slayer" and "Black Magic" are five star songs. And man, compared to pretty much everything else out there, this was fast. Still is today.
This is the same caliber as Show No Mercy, but with only 4 songs: "Chemical Warfare," "Captor of Sin," "Haunting the Chapel," and "Aggressive Perfector." "Chemical Warfare" is undoubtedly one of Slayer's best songs ever, that's for sure. Musically, this is still old-school thrash metal with less-than-spectacular production, but unlike some albums, the muffled production works here. It adds to the flavor of the album, the overall evil feel of it. I will add that the technicality of Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman's guitar playing astounds me--as it does with all Slayer albums. The awesome guitarwork at the beginning of "Captor of Sin" is too cool for words.
I don't normally buy live albums, but since this is Slayer we're talking about, I thought "What the hell!" Besides, I was able to find this one for like 3 bucks on cassette at a great record shop near my house. Anyway, what to say about this album? It's got songs from Show No Mercy and Haunting the Chapel performed live in New York City on a nationwide tour in 1984. The sound quality is pretty good for live. And some of Tom Araya's comments between songs are great (especially the intro of "Die by the Sword"). Live albums would usually get low ratings from me because of my personal prejudice against them, but since Slayer rules, I'm gonna give it 4 stars.
After two studio albums and one live album, Slayer released this masterpiece. The production is clearer than Mercy and Chapel, and the songs are more grand in feel. We have a couple of 6-minuters here folks. This is where the evil thrash of the early 80s got a little more grandiose (yes, Metallica of the same era wrote long, epic thrash, but they were never as focused on evil as Slayer was). The dark, morbid atmosphere of Mercy and Chapel are present, but the songs themselves seem a little more mature in style and substance. Honestly, the two studio albums before this seemed more about evil and speed...but Hell Awaits seemed more dark than evil. Does that make any sense? Forget it...just buy the damn album cause Slayer is god.
"One of the greatest metal albums ever made." "The best thrash metal release." "Slayer's most staggering work." All of these honors have been bestowed upon Reign in Blood by fans and critics. And I concur. Everything accomplished on this album illustrates what old-school thrash metal is all about. Speed, rhythm, technicality, stunning riffs. While most of the songs on here are very short, they are nonetheless excellent. However, Slayer is at their absolute best on the album's 3 long songs: "Postmortem," "Angel of Death," and "Raining Blood." These songs highlight how good Slayer is at crafting music. "Raining Blood" and "Angel of Death" are, in my opinion, the two best thrash metal songs ever. Buy this album or suffer the consequences.
