1 Slayer
reign in blood (1986)
It takes just 28 minutes and
58 seconds for Reign In
Blood to tear the competition
apart and gorily crown itself
the ultimate thrash album.
Even now, 33 years on from
its release, the intensity, fury, speed and
gut-punching heft that explodes out of it is
utterly devastating.
Recorded by producer Rick Rubin with
the intention of bringing the aggressive
guitars and Dave Lombardo’s machine-gun
drums right to the fore, rather than having
them heavily reverbed and spooky as on the
band’s first two releases, the aural violence
Slayer detonate is beyond heavy. The
album’s short running time is a result of the
band playing the songs with such anger at
record label interference that they managed
to reduce their duration in the process. It
all adds to what is, effectively, a weapon in
musical form.
But it wasn’t simply Slayer’s music that
was heavy. Their entire attitude screamed
bad vibes and controversy. Had the band
got two shits to rub together, they might
have thought twice about opening the
album with a song about Nazi doctor Josef
Mengele, the first word of which is a blunt,
yelled ‘Auschwitz’. As it was, though,
neither the song’s author, Jeff Hanneman
(who defended the lyrics saying, “We don’t
need to tell you he’s a bad guy”), nor the
man who had to sing it, Tom Araya, were inthe least bit bothered about any backlash.
The rest of the album is no less aggro. It
is like a rabid dog pulling on the end of its
chain, frothing at the mouth, choking with
anger. At times, you can’t actually make out
the words Tom is singing on Necrophobic
or the rapid-fire Jesus Saves, such is the
speed of his delivery, while the ending of
Raining Blood that closes the album is a
disorientating blur.
“If you want a picture of the future,”
wrote George Orwell in his book 1984,
“imagine a boot stomping on a human face,
forever.” If you want to know what that
would sound like, here it is in 29 minutes
and 10 tracks of the most aggressive,
middle-fingered and thrilling music ever
written. It is absolute perfection.KERRANG! 51photoS:gene ambo