Reign in Blood

Slayer

album cover

Grisly, Gruesome, Great

It took heavy metal musicians years to build a teensy-weensy bit of credibility, to get beyond the ghoulish and cartoonish. It takes Slayer twenty-eight minutes to torch all that well-intentioned imaging work. The blistering-fast Reign in Blood is full metal anarchy, an assault that blurs elements of speed metal and punk, thrash metal and devil-worshipping hard rock into tremendous menace. It is easily the most intense record of the mid-'80s and one of the more significant heavy rock statements of all time.

Nothing is sacred with Slayer. The album opens with a "tribute" of sorts to Nazi commander Josef Mengele, the so-called "Angel of Death." Columbia Records, Slayer's label, found the words to this song so reprehensible its executives refused to distribute the album. (Geffen Records immediately picked it up and made it into a hit.)

Things don't exactly get cheery after that opening. Produced by Rick Rubin, Reign in Blood is a series of hard-hitting, if often tongue-in-cheek, psychodramas, each terrifying in its own special way. Lead singer and bassist Tom Araya dispenses delighted proclamations of derangement ("Criminally Insane"), mocks the horror-film heroine who says her prayers ("Jesus Saves"), and ponders the end of life ("Postmortem") in a way that loads as much mental torment as any whiplash-fast song can hold.

The words are hardly the primary Slayer selling point. The band, which formed in Huntington Beach, California, in 1982, builds its songs around the switchblade accuracy of guitarists Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman. Rather than just stomp in the typical metal fashion (à la Megadeth), these two specialized in ultra-fast chromatic lines, crisscrossing riffs, and other devices that demand serious technical skill. That's the Slayer psych-out: Even when they're cranking superfast metal thunder, the band moves with a stalker's grace.

Genre: Rock
Released: 1986, American/Geffen
Key Tracks: "Raining Blood," "Criminally Insane," "Postmortem."
Collector's Note: The expanded edition offers a bonus track ("Aggressive Perfector") and an amazing remix of "Criminally Insane."
Catalog Choice: Seasons in the Abyss
Next Stop: Pantera: Vulgar Display of Power
After That: Corrosion of Conformity: Blind
Book Page: 710

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