Album Review: Slayer - Reign in Blood (1986)

Supposedly devoid of any Satanic overtones and more centered around issues such as religion and genocide, Slayer's 1986 masterpiece Reign in Blood's album cover suggests otherwise. However, it is pretty freaking fast, infectious, and it's small wonder it's held in such high regard by Satan worshiping metalheads and bogans with temperament issues. Muscially, it is brilliant, bar the flat vocals and crude lyrics that spew pure anger and rage rather than any real attempt at constructive lyricism. And it's insanely short too, with its total time being perilously close to that of an E.P. Mind you however, the average song length is roughly two minutes long. In a nutshell, a brilliant album in terms of quality, downright evil in terms of everything else. "Angel of Death", "Postmortem" and "Piece by Piece" are the top three picks of this album. Oh, and "Rain in Blood." And if you think these guys are Satanic, or even Deicide or Rotting Christ for that matter, listen to modern pop music with it's sexual overtones and subliminal messages of promiscuity. As the saying goes, the devil is in the details. A+