| Slayer - Reign In Blood | Label: Universal Release: 1986 Tracklisting: Angel of Death Piece By Piece Necrophobic Altar of Sacrifice Jesus Saves Criminally Insane Reborn Epidemic Postmortem Raining Blood |  (View Larger Image) 
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Average Blamo User Rating:  (30 votes) |
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| CD Review by Reginald I. Perrin (View Other Reviews by This Person) | |
| The defining thrash metal album, without question. Every song is played at either 2 tempos - "fast" or "break-neck", thedual guitars of Kerry King and Jeff Hannemann are set to "rape, pillage and pulverise", Dave Lombardo is causing many budding metal drummers severe arm-ache with his incendiary fills, and Tom Araya is at the front, playing bass and shouting out lyrics about nice subjects like the Holocaust, insanity, necrophila, and of course, Satan. And of course, it's overbefore you know it. Slayer's "Reign in Blood" is without a shadow of a doubt, the definitive, and best thrash metal album.From the cover to what's inside the disc, it couldn't symbolize the genre any better.
There's little point in discussing every track in detail - all you need to know is that they often feature crazed solos, andare played at something approaching 1000 bpm. And the guitar is always seemingly intent on killing you - as is Tom Araya,who, unlike a lot of metal vocalists, generally always tends to sound utterly menacing. This guy (well, on this album anyway) is an evil shitter - it's all over tracks like "Altar of Sacrifice", "Criminally Insane" and "Angel of Death". I'll discuss a couple of tracks - mainly the bigger ones. The opening "Angel of Death" is probably the perfect thrash song.Pounding riff, lyrics with offense level cranked to 11 ("SURGERY WITHOUT ANAESTHESIA!"), and some absolutely brilliantfills on both guitar and drums. The closing "Raining Blood" is the second greatest thrash song of all time - beginning with an absolutely insane fast section, before the intro starts good and proper - we are then quickly supplemented with themost famous thrash riff of all time (DUN-DUN-DUN-da-doo-da-dah-da-de-dah-da-de-daa), before we then head into the song atabsolute breakneck speed. Incredible work, especially in this genre. Sure, there's nothing deep about it - but it sure isexciting. It's for this reason that this record will get a 9 from me - yes, all the songs practically sound the same, and they generally mesh into each other. But that doesn't matter, because it's such a consistent record - every song is executedperfectly. There is a method behind Slayer's madness here, and they always seem to go into total overdrive at the bestpossible moment. The perfect thrash album - in fact, probably the best metal album of all time, full stop. 9 for sure. Reviewer Rating of CD :  | |
