Reign In Blood [PA] - Slayer > Reviews > Raining blood, from the lacerated sky

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Groundbreaking
Lyrics	Thought-provoking
Quality and consistency of tracks	A couple of weak links
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Good
Value for Money

Advantages:	Furious and terrifying
Disadvantages:	Over too quickly

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Ahhh…this is it folks, the thrash bible, so listen and learn. This is what thrash metal is all about - it’s fast, aggressive music concerned with little other than violence and death. It’s tight and technically astounding, while maintaining the raw, dangerous edge that made Slayer hated by the moral majority.

To begin with, we have to look at this album in a historical perspective. When I look at British metal in the eighties, I see Iron Maiden. Slayer are the band I see when I think of America in the same period. They invented thrash metal and continue to be its best representatives today - they haven’t calmed down and they haven’t slowed down.

Slow is certainly the last word you would think of to describe this album - it clocks in at only a little over 29 minutes, and this is a full album. The frenzied pace of the songs keeps them from getting too long. The guitars rage about you in a swirling maelstrom of aggressive, powerful riffing, as Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman attack their guitars like a pair of berserkers, while Dave Lombardo on drums sounds like he’s causing himself and the drum kit some serious damage. Tom Araya is a capable bassist simply to be able to keep up with the pack, but it’s his singing which makes this album sound so aggressive - there is little art in his vocal style, just a bloody throated scream that sounds like it’s coming up from the depths of hell.

Raining Blood is the highlight here, with it’s furious aggression, brilliant intro leading into a superb main riff and a brilliantly competent solo. Angel of Death is also excellent, with very mature lyrical content dealing with the horrors of the holocaust, supported by music which seems to represent pure brutal hatred unleashed on disc. The speed of this song is simply unbelievable, especially the solo, which has to be one of the most difficult things ever written for a heavy metal song.

Altar of Sacrifice and Jesus Saves are both superb, and are normally played back to back live, just as they are on this album. Again, Jesus Saves shows more lyrical maturity than most people expect from this band, being a devastating attack on organised religion.

The other tracks stand out less, but the album as a whole is s short that there is barely time to register this - the whole thing simply grabs hold of you, beats you around the head with a burst of pure metal, and then dives back into hell where it belongs. Absolutely brilliant, brought down one mark only by the fact that Slayer went on to make an even better album than this. If you are into metal at all, you simply must own this album.