Hell Awaits - Slayer

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1. Hell Awaits
2. Kill Again
3. At Dawn They Sleep
4. Praise of Death
5. Necrophiliac
6. Crypts of Eternity
7. Hardening of the Arteries

A long fade in of eerie torturous sound effects and backmasked backwards vocals subconsciously urging the listener to 'join us' gets things off to a disconcerting start, with the quiet squeal of a maniacally soloing guitar in the background. ...
...a fairly convincing portrayal of Hell in the first place without studio trickery.

A brief pause separates the first song from 'Kill Again,' and to casual listeners - if such a thing can exist in this case - would probably be unable to tell the difference if the pause was less noticeable. The song begins at full pelt, introducing some nice dual lead guitars (in a down-tuned, evil way rather than catchy Iron Maiden style), and Lombardo's ... more

The second full-length album from American thrash metal band Slayer must have been something of a shock to the record buying public, even years before the infamous trial over its alleged influence on a couple of young fans, who decided to interpret the lyrics booklet as an instruction manual. Following the insane (and in most cases, merely immature) wickedness of the Norwegian black metal bands in the early 90s, who burned down churches and stabbed each other because the cold made them angry, and then screamed their lungs out about it against an impenetrably distorted musical background of white noise, this thirty-seven-minute heavy metal beast doesn't seem quite so bad. Nevertheless, this can be easily considered the first truly characteristic Slayer album, and my personal favourite for fairly odd reasons.

The distinctive Slayer sound first surfaced on the band's previous release, the four-track E.P. 'Haunting the Chapel,' rather than the 1983 debut 'Show No Mercy' which ran more along the lines of the darker side of the British heavy metal scene, seemingly particularly influenced by the Satanic band Venom with whom Slayer would tour following the release of this album. This Venom and Motörhead influence is still audible in 'Hell Awaits,' but to a far lesser extent, as this is the first Slayer album to set the band's distinctive and highly influential sound, despite the overwhelming plaudits of its successor 'Reign in Blood.' Introducing frequent changes of rhythm and time signature, and breaking chaotically into guitar or drum solos without warning, the material on this album is longer on average than the violent, adrenaline fuelled outbursts Slayer would become known for, but rivals all later releases in terms of its innovation and pure evilness. That said, the extreme song length of six-minutes-plus in several instances does hinder the album from achieving the kind of popular recognition that its later spawnings would receive.

Recorded in August 1985 (just before I was born. That's of no relevance at all, but it's the sort of thing you can't help but notice), the production quality of this album is noticeably murkier and dirtier than that of their major label successors, but as this scarcely reduces the impact of Dave Lombardo's crushing drums, the exception being in the fourth track, and leaves Kerry King's fret assaults unscathed, the resulting hellish atmosphere created by this underproduced backdrop is far more fitting to the music and lyrics, making it easy to imagine that this was recorded in a crypt, or at least a basement housing stowed corpses, rather than the timid sounding Eldorado Studios in Hollywood. Tom Araya yells his way through the album's entirety, showing off his admirable lung ability - he was a respiratory therapist after all - but not being afraid to reveal his limitations in passages that are simply too fast to shout audibly over, reverting to a simple yell and, in the solitary case of 'Crypts of Eternity,' an extended heavy metal wail. The live feel of this album makes it all the more enjoyable to listen to, regardless of whether it was recorded piece by piece, and while the riff changes all sound effective and clearly took a great deal of planning, the guitar solos sound positively arbitrary and improvised in most cases.

1. Hell Awaits
2. Kill Again
3. At Dawn They Sleep
4. Praise of Death
5. Necrophiliac
6. Crypts of Eternity
7. Hardening of the Arteries

A long fade in of eerie torturous sound effects and backmasked backwards vocals subconsciously urging the listener to 'join us' gets things off to a disconcerting start, with the quiet squeal of a maniacally soloing guitar in the background. Over the course of these seven songs, much will be toyed with in terms of volume and tempo, and several songs start in the similar fashion of a quiet introduction followed by the crushing volume of the first verse. Presumably this is either to increase tension, or to fool new listeners into turning up their stereo speakers, which will then explode in their faces. The opening title track is led by a predominantly slow and heavy guitar riff, backed up always by Dave Lombardo's drums which sound almost tribal like those of the band's thrash contemporaries Sepultura in places, keeping a permanent rhythm despite all the experimentation. The song becomes faster and more indebted to its Venom-style roots before suddenly changing to a sound that can only be described as trademark Slayer: the instruments running at full pelt with minimal effort to introduce a pleasant harmony into the manic riffs, and Araya yelling frantically to keep up. The song's two main guitar solos, by which I mean any wild fret masturbation that lasts for more than two seconds, both come towards the end and demonstrate Slayer's influence as a pre-death-metal band. The only really weak part of this song is the horribly false sounding distortion of the 'Hell Awaits' line of the chorus, which is completely unnecessary and distracting as the band were making a fairly convincing portrayal of Hell in the first place without studio trickery.

A brief pause separates the first song from 'Kill Again,' and to casual listeners - if such a thing can exist in this case - would probably be unable to tell the difference if the pause was less noticeable. The song begins at full pelt, introducing some nice dual lead guitars (in a down-tuned, evil way rather than catchy Iron Maiden style), and Lombardo's drums keep an interesting marching rhythm that helps set the scene for the inexcusably violent lyrics of death, gore and hate. Araya is forced to yell in tongues until the song takes a bit of a breather, and even lets out a long shout, similar to the one that would open the next album, as the last verse kicks in. King's guitar solo is slower paced this time, and while not particularly inventive, it's nice to hear him play some simple scales... or whatever that's called. I'm no musician, I just listen to the stuff.

Evil harmonics open the vampire song 'At Dawn They Sleep,' predating the sound that Testament would use repeatedly throughout the late eighties, while the rhythm changes and great segue into chorus foreshadow the more well-known 'Angel of Death' that was to come later. The vocals are at their best here, relentless and not content to be limited to the verses and choruses for the first time, insisting on continuing pretty much throughout and coming in early for once. The guitar solo half-way through is the best so far, sounding pre-planned and almost like Iron Maiden, but still making some obvious sacrifices of notes in order to keep the pace, before a great, slow, headbanging riff comes in that sounds similar to the end of Machine Head's 'Davidian.' Despite this perhaps being the best song so far, it seems to drag on towards the end, and is perhaps just fatigue on the part of the listener as the band continues to play at full pelt. Some kind of acoustic ballad would be entirely inappropriate on this disc, but it would have at least made for a nice breather.

Suffering for the same reason as the middle song of the album, 'Praise of Death' is the least exciting piece here, sounding too similar to the previous two songs in its speed and delivery. The drums sound unusually like they're made of cardboard, the only time the mid-eighties production becomes an issue, and the randomness of the guitar solos actually becomes a problem here, rather than something quite cool. Araya's bass can be heard prominently, and will remain for the rest of the album in this foregrounded position, but as it's just playing the same thing as the guitars in this song it doesn't deserve any special credit. All this song really has to offer are some interesting riffs in the second half when the pace slows down, and perhaps to signify the exhaustion there's a sort of death-of-the-instruments feedback section where the band perhaps collapsed in the studio. Unfortunately, twenty seconds later they begin again with the tired riff, making this distraction necessary only if you're headbanging by yourself in your room, and your neck needed a bit of a rest.

The most controversial song on this album is one of the very best, the self-explanatory 'Necrophiliac' that would, much later, instigate a court case in the same manner as Judas Priest's 'Better By You,. Better Than Me' and Ozzy Osbourne's 'Suicide Solution.' To be fair on those other bands, the offending Slayer song is a little more graphic. The guitar riffs in this song are memorable, never seeming like the mere background to speed that they did in some previous songs, and as the shortest song on the album (one of only two that are under four minutes), it avoids running out of steam like the previous effort. The vocals really go over the top here, effectively stealing the song for once, and there's a fantastic dual guitar melody that very clearly evolves into the signature riff of the next album's title track. Ending abruptly for once, the band missed the opportunity to incite further controversy by exploring the subject matter in even greater detail. It's a great song regardless, and it must have been pretty cool to be a member of that jury, getting this piped through the high quality acoustics of a court of law.

There's something about the title 'Crypts of Eternity' that makes this sound like more of a British heavy metal song of the period than something belonging on this album, something I can't really explain, and bizarrely it proves true with the subtly different approach taken with this track, perhaps a cast-off from their earlier years or perhaps not. Launching straight into guitar solos like Metallica's 'No Remorse,' even featuring the same 'distance' effect for the main riffs interspersed with drums, the song launches into a riff that doesn't seem anywhere near as vicious as those of the previous offerings, and is more content to be fun in the way Motörhead are fun, focusing more on creating a rhythm than a wall of sound. The only real problem is that some of the riffs carry on for too long without much diversity, only noticeable in comparison to the restlessness of the rest of the album, but as someone more inclined to the style being emulated than the aggression of the band's other work, this is perhaps my favourite song, if only for Araya's unprecedented heavy metal scream at the end.

The final song returns to form, and is a little disappointing in its position in the same way 'Praise of Death' let the middle of the record down. The primary song is nothing too exciting or unpredictable, with speedy verses of shouted vocals and those guitar solos I keep referring to as 'evil sounding' for wont of a technical vocabulary, but it's the last minute or so that proves interesting in the larger scheme of things. Lombardo's slow, pounding drums return, beckoning something great and evil while the guitars cower in a corner, until finally a great, slow chugging riff harks back to the opening song, in what I'd like to think is a deliberate attempt to create symmetry. It works regardless, and the song fades out just as the first song faded in, the last sound we hear being Kerry King truly thinking outside the box and playing a solo on the screeching metal bits of the guitar you're not really supposed to play.

On a first listen, there can be a lot more to 'Hell Awaits' than meets the ears. Subsequent listens reveal that these elusive progressive or avant garde quirks are really just the same repeated tricks of time signature change, with some random and aesthetically questionable squealing guitars cropping up every now and again. In many ways, this album, while being vital in the development of both thrash and death metal, is something of an inferior predecessor to 1987's 'Reign in Blood,' which really cracked the idea of a relentless aural assault and edited out all the unnecessary extra length, but this remains my personal favourite Slayer album partly for these imperfections. Later releases were seemingly produced under pressure to avoid emulating 'Reign in Blood' by playing slower and more methodically, but 'Hell Awaits' has none of these restrictions, and is really the band playing the angry, vicious, exhausting, disgusting music they love.

As I noted earlier, the slightly fuzzy and echoed production really adds to the atmosphere, and even in instances where it's obvious that a learning process is taking place - particularly Araya's approach to vocals - it's nice to hear the imperfections of a band that countless annoying thrash snobs proclaim to be the best in the world. 'Hell Awaits' is a significantly flawed album that could have been a lot better, but I'm not sure I want it to be, and even Araya has commented in recent years that the band could re-record it, as Testament have done with their early releases, 'but why ruin it?' Perhaps the greatest praise that can be said of this album is its previously unbeaten aural depiction of Hell, something that would later be rivalled with Iced Earth's 'Burnt Offerings,' which is better. 

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