As a kid I loved Black Sabbath. Something so powerful that connects directly. Not sure why but then in my early teenage years I moved away from them, Metal was stupid or so it seemed and I started listening to New Order, The Cure, Dead Kennedys, Crass…a lot of Punk stuff that I’d just missed out on generationally.
Circa 1986 I started attending any gig I could possibly go to, 2 or 3 a week. Conflict, Anti-Sect, Napalm Death, Electro Hippies, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, Heresy, many more. I would look in Vinyl Dreams, a record shop in Oasis Birmingham and they had a rack that started to fill with more and more Hardcore albums. Flicking through this I saw ‘Show No Mercy’ and it looked like the stupidest sleeve I’d ever seen, almost so bad it was great. The Thrash scene started getting a lot of press quickly and a lot was written about Reign In Blood, I’m pretty sure there was some hold up on the albums U.K. release, you could read about it, you couldn’t hear it.
Then, by chance I popped into Vinyl Dreams and in that hardcore rack they had Reign In Blood, import £7:49, this was £2 more than I’d be usually comfortable spending on a record back then. It was a no brainer, I bought it, I had to. On the bus journey home I took the inner sleeve out and holy shit, it was on Def Jam, I couldn’t really fathom already what was going on, this is a Metal band, right? Wrong.
That afternoon I must have played Reign In Blood 6 or 7 times. I could not believe how short it was. I could not take in all in. The artwork, so grubby actually evoking Hell, the lyrics, were they serious? I was initially conflicted, but man that music was speaking volumes to me. No longer would Sabbath be a past guilty uncool secret. The more I played Reign In Blood, the more it connected. I had missed out on the first wave of Punk. I had loved Maiden and Sabbath. This was Punk and Metal bolted together with so much precision you could not see the joining points.
What Reign In Blood does it that it allows yourself to get lost in the music. Like for them 26 minutes, nothing else matters. It’s to me like a painting, a film, a high work of art and as such it provokes, it does not hold your hand, it does not explain itself. I have read some of the comments above and everyone is totally entitled to their own take on Slayer. I’d say, to me Slayer use satanic and shocking imagery to hold a mirror up to Reagan’s America. The stickers on Hanneman’s guitar, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, Wasted Youth, TSOL told me all I needed to know.
After the album settled you could see an impact, at gigs, on the streets, on peoples jackets and in the music. Your hardcore bands treading the circuits bled more Metal into their music, seems a lot of people had the same guilty secret, and it was lapped up. The music and scenes got bigger, the same small hardcore bands were outgrowing the small venues all of a sudden. That big 3 or big 4 had an impact yet to me Slayer stand alone from Metallica, Anthrax and the other band. Totally alone.
Slayer are the fastest band I have heard that holds an intricate tune. No slight to bands that play faster, I just think Slayer, Reign In Blood particularly - is the fastest you can go before stuff distorts or blurrs. Reign In Blood has not one second of slack to my ears. It’s amongst the 3 best albums I have ever heard.
Of course Reign In Blood is their masterpiece. The band themselves already knew they could not top it. South of Heaven, Seasons In The Abyss and Hell Awaits are all mighty strong records. Had Hell Awaits been produced by Rick Rubin it would possibly be their second best album. I have no interest in anything post Seasons In The Abyss but they always put on a great live show. Saw them on the Reign In Blood and South Of Heaven tours and again about 10 years or so back.
They showed how music born of frustration can walk genres and in cases melt them. They are not perfect, they do have a perfect album though, how many bands can you say that about? Extreme music for open accepting ears.
Their high is so high it can only be a 5 from me.
