Slayer - Reign in Blood
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Music CD Cover
Artist: SlayerEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Extra tracks, Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 2007-07-24
Music Label: Sony Legacy
Product features:
- Slayer - Reign In Blood
- Angel of Death
- Piece by Piece
- Necrophobic
- Altar of Sacrifice
- Jesus Saves
- Criminally Insane
- Reborn
- Epidemic
- Postmortem
- Raining Blood
- Aggressive Perfector [*]
- Criminally Insane [*]
Free Music Notes for Reign in Blood
Free Music Review: Essential metal album, influential and still scary to this day
Hit: 5 Stars
I am a musician, and over the years I have grown to enjoy and play most genres of music from rock n' roll to jazz to electronic music, but I have never lost my love of heavy metal. I am 35 now. I first heard this album as a mullet-headed, scrawny, pimply 16 year old a few years after it came out. I dubbed a cassette copy from a friend and completely wore it out.
There are nearly 600 other Amazon reviews here, so there's not much to say that hasn't already been said about Reign In Blood. Still, indulge me - I just want to make a few comments about how influential and timeless this album is.
To me, Tom Araya's vocals have always been one of Slayer's greatest assets. He can't really "sing" per se, his voice of more of an aggressive, unhinged bark, full of aggression and rage. Within his limitations he has a surprising range, too. To me his vocal style is more effectively aggressive than the standard cookie cutter, Cookie Monster-like cookie cutter death grunts and shrieks that are now a hackneyed cliché in metal bands. Plus, you can understand most of the lyrics by just listening - a lyric sheet is required for most metal bands.
Also, at the time this came out, with the possible exception of Venom, nobody was as blasphemous as Slayer. I don't think the band has ever really been Satanists, and I think they would probably describe themselves as atheists more than anything else. I look at the satanic imagery as more of a broadside against organized religion, Christianity of course in particular. In fact the lyrics of lot of the more Satanic songs, particularly on this album, would be quite cheesy if not for the raw rage with which they were delivered. Slayer is interested in showing us the darker corners of human nature, not in converting us to any one worldview. But if you've got a grudge against religion, Slayer is the band and this is the album for your angry moments.
Lombardo's drumming on this album is phenomenal, too - the guy practically invented the double kick drum technique that is now such a standard element of death metal. He's a little looser here than on most of their other albums. This was the mid 80s - no one had ever heard a drummer play so fast. There were a few English grind bands like Napalm Death doing blast beats, but blast beats at the time were more of an expression of punk aggression, not really a metal thing.
A few of the criticisms of this album are justified. For one, there is little bass presence to speak of, the same problem that plagued Metallica's otherwise excellent ...And Justice For All. For another the unrelenting attack makes these tunes sound kind of similar at times - the familiar "all the songs sound the same" critique. That can be true of metal bands in general, particularly in the years since Reign In Blood and with the personalityless grunts and inhuman roars have become the norm for metal. There is also a case to be made that some of the satanic stuff can seem a little ridiculous, again true for a lot of metal bands in general.
It's good that they made this Reign so short - I don't see how keeping this level of intensity couldn't start to grate if it went on much longer. After this record they began to explore more varied tempos.
But to this day, Araya's demonic shriek at the beginning of "Angel Of Death" still chills my blood. He sounds like a scaly, horned demon swooping down from a lightning-filled black sky to devour souls! The aggression and intensity do not let up from there. There are hardly even any gaps between the songs. It's a blistering, full-frontal assault from beginning to end. Some metal albums can be a little cheesy, but not this one. It's genuinely scary and perfect for frightening your parents, as it certainly did mine. It's an album whose legendary status is entirely justified, and continues to inspire new generations of metalheads to raise their hands in the "devil horns" salute. It's that good.
Reign in Blood Poster
Out of print in the U.S.! For nearly 25 years, Slayer have remained the most important and influential Speed Metal band in history. Reign In Blood is their 1986 mind-numbing opus featuring 12 tracks including 'Angle Of Death', 'Necrophobic', 'Altar Of Sacrifice' and more. Warner.This 28-minute slab of noise ranks among the most aggressive, brutal, and bone-crushingly intense major label releases ever. After opening with the highly controversial blur-of-volume "Angel of Death," which tells of the grisly exploits of sadistic Nazi doctor Joseph Mengele, the album confronts Satanic rituals ("Altar of Sacrifice"), serial killing "Piece by Piece," and the apocalypse ("Raining Blood"), before ending abruptly with the sounds of falling rain (assumedly blood). But the band doesn't thrive on shock value alone. Reign in Blood is packed with stop-on-a-dime tempo shifts, complex guitar riffs and daunting rhythms that verify that Slayer are skilled musicians as well as twisted human beings. --Jon Wiederhorn
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