Slayer's Reign in Blood was a life changing album for me. It took the fury of punk and crossed it with the speed of bands like Venom and Celtic Frost. But with great production value.
There were two kids that were in the same shop class as me in high school that had this underground metal fanzine [Skull Press if memory serves correct]. They were always coming in with the craziest stuff I'd ever heard. One day they came in raving about this advance album they received. They had been listening to it all weekend and made a cassette copy so that they could continue listening to it when they weren't at home.
Reign in Blood was love at first listen. It was short, fast, and sweet. It still is. There's rarely a day that goes by that I don't listen to RiB from start to finish. Often I listen to it several times a day. Twenty-two years have done nothing to diminish my love for this record. It still sounds as great today as it did 22 years ago. As a matter of fact...I think the production on this record beats many albums being released now. Rick Rubin produced one for the ages.
Would the overall history of the world have changed without Reign in Blood? Probably not. The Berlin Wall would still come down. The ATF would still raid the Branch Davidians. Seinfeld would still be about nothing. Princess Diana would still die tragically. Jihad would still occur on 9.11.01. The space shuttle would still explode on reentry. American Idol would still be the #1 show on television. The Red Sox would still win the World Series.
But it would have been much different living through it all without that perfect little 29 minute and 3 second blast of pure adrenaline. EXAMPLE: South Park would still be populated by hundreds of thousands of hippies. That alone is reason enough to praise a higher being for the creation of Reign in Blood.
Ultimately it was an anonymous fan waiting in line for the doors to open at a Slayer concert that summed it up best. When asked by a writer from Spin magazine if the fan thought the latest Slayer record was better than Reign in Blood the fan responded "What is?"
1 comment:
What a great album review! You know I don't give two hoots about Slayer, but it's abundantly clear how very much you love this album. And you've said it much more eloquently than, "Dude, go buy it!"
I'm so glad you're blogging now. This will be a good place for you, a frustrated writer, to pen your heart's desires. Or whatever pops into your head. If you open an LJ account, you can read the stuff I post, as I haven't started using my blog here yet. (I had to make my LJ mostly "friends only" when D Magazine linked to one of my pubic posts and I was inundated with emails from strangers arguing with me.)
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