Slayer- Reign In Blood (1986)

Slayer- Reign In Blood (1986)

By: Ghost Writer

Tom Araya iconic ear piercing screaming on Reign in Blood's opener Angel of Death will always stay on my mind, is impossible to get it out of there, is as an impressive way to start a record, as impressive as Misirlou was for the opening of Tarantino's all time classic Pulp Fiction, and as Tarantino said about the song: "It throw down a gauntlet" that in this case the record has to live up to, and it certainly does, Angel of Death is an all-time classic, it starts on a blood thirst hardcore frenzy thanks to Lombardo stamina levels that would blow away Trump's quest for it, but the great thing about AoD is that it suddenly mutates into something else, there's an amazing brake, the song slows down and becomes heavier and impossibly good that even industrial rockers KMFDM took notice and used as a sample for their Godlike song, then again, nearly at the end of the song another brake, the amphetamine like beats and Kerry King's anarchic solos, AoD is not only extreme musically speaking, it subject telling us tale of doctor Josef Mengele's brutal medical experiments in Auschwitz, it obvious sparkled tons of controversy in 1986,the year the record was released, as Slayer were showing that human nature was even scarier than phony Satanism, or that like always, reality far surpassed fiction. 

But things continue the on the same level of intensity with Lombardo pulverizing performance on Piece by Piece along with main composer and guitarist Jeff Hanneman red hot riffing gloriously captured on tape by the then incredible rock and hip hop producer Rick Rubin this is the sort of production Metallica was seeking when they hired Rubin to produce Death Magnetic, but Metallica is no Slayer by any chance, PbP is short and to the point, quickly followed by Necrophobic, an almost impossible to follow lightning speed theme with gorgeous guitars along impressive slow parts that are like enormous vacuums sucking all the energy around for a few seconds, letting Araya take full commands at times. 

Reign in Blood at times reminds me of great hardcore punk, Ramone's early records, Discharge or the Misfits hardcore influenced Earth A.D., records that hit you in the head so hard and fast, not letting easily realize what really hit you leaving you dazed and confused and in a total state of shock, setting the clear and at the same time bloody path for death metal bands like Morbid Angel and Deicide who would kill to make a record this good, making impossible to think of Altars of Madness of the debut Deicide's recording without a song like Altar of Sacrifice. 

But within all the ugliness in Reign in Blood there's some beauty in the elegant heavy metal defying riffing on Jesus Saves, a definitive high point in Slayer's discharge, with Araya ad Lombardo relentlessly clearing the path in order to King and Hanneman get through with pure corrosive guitar solos, Reign in Blood, thanks to Rubin's dry and simple production sounds as good today as it did 30 years ago, it was a thrilling record to listen to as a very young teenager, I always shifted towards the red note on the newspaper, murder, rape, violence, Satanism always made me curious at that age, and Reign in Blood came perfectly in that period, it was scary and fun at the same time, it was revolutionary, it made me want to listen to even heavier music, it was definitely a hard time for my mother who had to stand my afternoons at home listening to such heavy stuff.