Reign in Blood
South of Heaven
Seasons in the Abyss
Undisputed Attitude
Divine Intervention
Diabolus in Musica

Reign In Blood

Slayer. Aaaggghh! Just their name makes my ears bleed. This band is about as heavy as metal can get: monstrously fast and furious guitar leads and riffola invade constantly changing arrangements while raw vocals shout words the P.M.R.C. never dreamed existed. Their high energy and aggressiveness dances on the verge of hardcore while retaining a speed/thrash metal edge. Certainly I would play "Angel Of Death," "Altar Of Sacrifice," "Criminally Insane" or "Reborn" for my beloved mom. Just get ready to cure Excedrin headache number 666, caused either by the music itself or all the phone calls you'll get requesting/complaining about Slayer's grace.
� 1978-1999 College Media, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The source of the new generation of metal bands, as important to it as Metallica's Ride The Lightning was to the last generation-every death-/black-metal and grindcore band can trace its lineage to here. This is the sound of pure violence, of a cult devoted to murderers and bloodshed: no hippie guitar stuff, just raw unstoppable force. It's less than half an hour long, but gangland-style executions don't generally take long either. To quote CMJ's own Ian Christe, "is there a city in the world where the teenagers don't wear skull T-shirts?"
� 1978-1999 College Media, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

South of Heaven

I swear, Slayer is the only out-and-out death metal band with any class. There's been an awful lot of hoopla over the fact that this record is slower than anything the fastest band in the world has done before; yeah, it's slower, but it's actually more lethal (a slow death is supposed to be more painful, right?). Rick Rubin's spare production has thrown the band's skill into a dramatic relief: drummer Dave Lombardo is the glue that holds the band together, while guitarists Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King throw sharp, angular riffs and psychotic leads on the rhythm structure like barbs on barbed wire. The lyrics still read like a treatment of Faces Of Death (and are actually worse sometimes), but for once, Tom Araya is actually singing! For me, the greatest thing about this band is that they groove - you could actually dance to some of these songs (not that anyone will). The whole LP is excellent, but key on "Crooked Cross," "Mandatory Suicide," and the title track; those who can't abide a slow Slayer should check "Silent Scream" and "Ghosts Of War," two of the fastest and most dangerous songs they've ever done.
� 1978-1999 College Media, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Seasons in the Abyss

While other metal bands of the genre just end up sounding either really overdone or just really dumb, Slayer perches on the edge of the void of darkness without ever being sucked into the yawning pit of stupidity with other lesser speed metal bands. Their broadest work yet, Seasons continues their evil reign, and shows that in the two long years since South Of Heaven, the Slaytanic four have scaled new heights, mastering new time signatures beyond the standard elephant-charge thrash or death-creep crawl, to create an onslaught that will sling even the most timid of spinal columns into a variety of reckless tempos. "Dead Skin Mask" (purportedly about notorious mass murderer Ed Gein), "Spirit In Black," "Born Of Fire" and the mini-epic title track make Seasons In The Abyss their longest epic ever (our CD timer expired at just over forty minutes, a good 10 or 12 minutes over the average Slayer LP of yore). In these jaded seen-it-all, done-it-all days, this record will still be banned, burned, blasphemed and, most importantly, blasted out of countless speakers the world over.
� 1978-1999 College Media, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

To quote a friend, "Slayer seems to bring out the worst in people." And while that kind of nega-response sends the conservatives a'rallying, there is something sadistically interesting about such statements. So with the release of the most heavily anticipated metal album since Metallica's And Justice For All, Slayer progresses to the next logical plateau in their career as the ultimate speed metal band. Reign In Blood found the band setting land-speed records, South Of Heaven polished their songwriting to a razor edge, and Seasons In The Abyss seals the deal stylistically. This full-on hell-on-earth varies in tempo, splicing some of their fastest material with more slow n' heavy grooves that chill ya several layers below the bone. In doing so, Seasons clocks in just over forty minutes (with almost no lead tape between the songs), finally breaking the band's blackened thirty-to-thirty-four minute stopwatch. However, some things rightfully remain the same: songwriting credits shared equally between Hannenman/King/Araya, Dave Lombardo's panic drum fills, and crystal-clear production courtesy of Rick Rubin. This is everything a Slayer record is made of. If you're not on it, you're probably alone. Blackened slaytanic ritual odes of speed: "Expendable Youth," "Dead Skin Mask," "Skeletons Of Society," "Born Of Fire" and especially the title track (possibly their finest song to date).
� 1978-1999 College Media, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Undisputed Attitude

Slayer is the king of thrash-speed-hardcore, so why did the band record this album of punk tunes? Is Slayer jumping on the trendy punk bandwagon? Hell, no! Basically, as guitarist Jeff Hanneman explains, "This record is something I've wanted to do for a long time, but we're only getting around to it now because we're just a bunch of lazy bastards." To all the hair-brained idiots who think Slayer would actually sell out and go the punk-pop-fluff route, he had this to offer: "The songs on this record are real punk, the hardcore punk from the early 1980s, not that Green Day thing." Thank god for that! For those who know their hardcore punk roots and are familiar with the ultimate power of early punk music and the impact it had on its devout followers, it's no surprise that the almighty Slayer was strongly influenced by the pure, raw sound and boisterous attitude of original punkers like the Dead Kennedys, the Adolescents and D.I. In addition to II raucous, blistering and brutal covers of songs by Verbal Abuse, T.S.O.L., Minor Threat, Dr. Know, D.R.I. and Iggy Pop & The Stooges, Undisputed Attitude contains two of Hanneman's punk-era originals, written back in `83 and `84 - "I Can't Stand You" and "DDAMM (Drunk Drivers Against Mad Mothers)" - and a brand new Slayer tune, "Gemini," which is a welcome, although surprising, change of musical direction for the band with its slow, plodding, but nonetheless excruciatingly heavy, doom-encrusted stomps. "Gemini" is undeniably Slayer with its heavier-than-hell grinding crunch, but it's almost as if someone hit the sb-mo button: There are no spit-fire percussive breaks, frantic guitar wails or death-y vocal howls. One of the band's best, and most mature, songs ever, Gemini" proves that Slayer is a multi-faceted, multi-talented, platinum-plus band just waiting to explode on a much wider national scale than ever before. If this isn't the song that breaks Slayer into the mainstream, nothing will.
� 1978-1999 College Media, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

If you're skeptical about Undisputed Attitude (originally titled Selected And Exhumed), take our advice: Set aside all your assumptions about cover records, punk cover records, and/or Slayer doing a punk cover record, because you're in for a vicious treat. Though Undisputed Attitude is a collection of covers of thrash punk classics (i.e. Minor Threat, D.I., T.S.O.L., etc.), what's surprising about the whole affair is how much it kicks ass, simply as a Slayer record. It's important to remember that the bands honored (and we do mean honored) by these renditions are actually `80s contemporaries of the band rather than influences - in the early days, Slayer played in and around Los Angeles with the likes of the Circle Jerks, D.R.I. and Verbal Abuse - so what you're hearing is less of a hats-off tribute and more of a circling of hardcore and thrash's wagons against the pop-punk hitmakers of the `90s. When paired in unholy union, Slayer and hardcore are a pretty intimidating pair: Undisputed Attitude kicks off with a one-minute, 40-second pummeling of Verbal Abuse's "Disintegration/Free Money," and it doesn't let up for the rest of its 25 minutes, closing the covers section of the album with a full Slayer-ization of the Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog" into the dictating "I'm Gonna Be Your God." The album's biggest jolt comes at the very end, with the set's one Slayer original, "Gemini." We'll let it be a surprise, but suffice it to say that it's slow, and it has a melody - look out.
� 1978-1999 College Media, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Thankfully for those with weaker constitutions, Slayer has always been highly economical about unleashing the titanic fury of its music upon the world. Its best album clocks in at 29 minutes, and it averages two years wait between new projects, which brings us to Undisputed Attitude, its offering of 16 covers of seminal punk tunes. An album of covers would set red lights flashing for fans of almost any band, and the lone Slayer original here is mostly slow! Is it the Spaghetti Incident? Are they drying up? Nah, not even close. Exceedingly short, unrelentingly brutal, hellishly fun, it's best to consider as Slayer's equivalent of a Tony Bennett album dedicated especially to the ladies. It's actually refreshing to hear them sing lyrics to angry kids' songs instead of their usual intensive studies of diabolical and unstable minds - if anything, it humanizes them. Well, not too much. Hearing Tom Araya snarl Minor Threat's "Guilty Of Being White," one is struck by the the thought that, well, yes, most serial killers are white males. Hearing him rant his own twisted lyrics to Iggy Pop's "I Wanna Be Your Dog" ("In my room, I want you - dear"), one is reminded that yes, many serial killers do enjoy the pleasures of heavy metal music. Rest assured, Slayer's idea of back to the roots is yanking hair out by them.
� 1978-1999 College Media, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

For anyone who remains unclear about the relationship between hardcore punk and speed metal, Slayer's hommage to their roots on "Undisputed Attitude" hammers home the point with relentless fervor. The band attacks some of the terse rants from its formative years (selections from the likes of Minor Threat, T.S.O.L. and Verbal Abuse) with a ferocity that's as raw as that of Slayer's mentors' yet as refined as you'd expect from 14-year veterans of precision metal. Most of the tracks pummel past like a speeding thermonuclear reaction, but a couple (notably D.I.'s "Richard Hung Himself") actually move slowly enough to show off some brutally graceful rhythmic shifts. Of the three Slayer originals, "Can't Stand You" approaches the light-speed (metal) barrier, while the newly written "Gemini" leaves room for brooding and a more complex instrumental workout. Some punk purists will undoubtedly cry foul, but when the dust settles it's hard to argue with Slayer's mettle.
-- SANDY MASUO (RS735)
Copyright � 1968-1999 Rolling Stone Network. All Rights Reserved.
Rolling Stone Network

Divine Intervention

For Slayer fans, the wait for this record was long and hard. Slayer had created its own genre, utterly impossible to impersonate, and our last taste of sheer speed and death (outside of 1991`s live double LP) was 1990's Seasons In The Abyss. If Slayer had ever changed, this would be a relentless return to form, because the 10 pulverizing songs on Devine Intervention wear obliterating blinders to grunge, pop-punk and every other metal fad, instead pronouncing unflinching allegiance to the band's nation of fans. A triumph of extremes.

Shredding, tearing, grinding and pummeling eardrums till they bled, Slayer ripped out yet another frighteningly heavy thrashy speedcore riff-o-rama this year. Following a string of three certified-gold albums, Divine Intervention had a lot to live up to and, once again, Slayer did not disappoint THE tour of `95, featuring Machine Head, Biohazard and Slayer, begins in mid-January.

Slayer penned the original thrash/death metal bible more than a decade ago with the release of its brutally bloody 1983 debut, Show No Mercy, and since then has achieved massive worldwide success with three certified gold albums - Reign In Blood, South Of Heaven and Seasons In The Abyss - helping the band attain its goal of becoming "the heaviest band in the world." Divine Intervention - the band's first album in three years, following 1991's double-live CD, Decade Of Aggression - will rip your head off and stomp your brains into the ground with the ease and grace of 100 elephants on crack. Shredding, tearing, grinding and pummeling your eardrums until they bleed, Slayer rips through 10 thundering tracks filled with bludgeoning speed-core riffs, thrashy rhythms and blindingly heavy grooves, all shrouded in a dark, oppressive atmosphere. Divine Intervention also sees the addition of ex-Forbidden drummer Paul Bostaph to Slayer's lineup of vocalist/bassist Tom Araya and guitarists Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King. With lyrics tackling societal and governmental decay, as well as the dementia lurking in the minds of serial killers, Divine Intervention stimulates both the psyche and the body. From the crushing opening chords of "Killing Fields" to the closing crunch of "Mind Control," Slayer slashes through one explosive tune after another. Also check out "Sex.Murder.Art.," "Fictional Reality," "Divine Intervention," "Serenity In Murder" and "213," about serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.

When primitive men and women first stepped out of their caves and looked at the night sky, chances are they probably weren't filled with wonder, awe and joy-they were probably scared witless. And likewise, when the first protohuman conquered fire, he probably immediately started using it not for warmth and security, but to burn the hide off people in the next village. Slayer understands these facts, and its powerful music deals with the elemental forces of darkness that drive life itself: murder, mayhem, sacrifice, carnage, horror and fear of the unknown. Slayer is not bogged down by whether or not its particular brand of black-clad, Satanic speed metal has fallen out of fashion from its heyday in the gloomy gothic `80s; the band deals on a far more colossal scale, presenting drama on an epic level. After all, art forms from opera to ancient mythologies are brimming with blood and gore, and horror-especially unknown horror-is a part of the psychic fabric of every personality. Slayer's mission: to rend that fabric, to rip, to shred, to project terror, agony and darkness onto a larger-than-life screen of its music. Divine Intervention, released three years closer to the impending apocalypse than the band's previous CD, is an even more taut and finely tuned exploration into riffs of death, screams of dismemberment and furious Paul Bostoph (ex-Forbidden) drum cannonades, a masterwork of brilliant, razor-sharp speed metal that stands tall beside such previous Slaytanic opuses as Reign In Blood and South Of Heaven. � 1978-1999 College Media, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

How do we cope with a sick society where serial killers become celebrities,inner-city murders are so commonplace they no longer make headlines and hard drugs are as easy to buy as candy? For Slayer, creating fast, brutalizing music is the best way of coping with its sordid surroundings. And judging by the hostile aggression of Divine Intervention, life for Slayer these days is as much of a struggle as ever. Noisier and far faster than the band's past two albums, the new disc is a return to the skull-splitting heaviness Slayer exhibited early in its nefarious career. Divine Intervention features few hooks and even fewer sing-along melodies (unless you consider screaming "CASTRATE SOCIETY!" at the top of your lungs a melody), yet it's so tight and impeccably crafted that the songs hold together. Especially notable are the screaming, epileptic guitar solos, which draw the listener into the vortex of mayhem. "Circle Of Belief" is a full-throttled, double-barrelled leap into the abyss, and the bombastic noise of "Dittohead" sounds like an insane military commander ordering his troops to charge into a storm of heavy explosives. INCOMING! � 1978-1999 College Media, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Diabolus in Musica

If you had any headbanging friends or associates when Slayer's album of punk covers, Undisputed Attitude, came out in '96, you know that there was a new, atypically slow song by the band included at the end of the album called "Gemini." In fact, you probably spent many hours counseling distraught metal fiends over the trauma at hearing Tom Araya and company at less than lightning pace (oh, the humanity!). Well, like all great deities, Slayer reveals to its faithful the purpose of its trial with Diabolus In Musica. Though it's a standard scorched-earth/River-Styx-on-fire/ Satan-awaits metal tour-de-force, it bears the fruits of the lesson Slayer learned with "Gemini." Specifically, if you want a song to sound fast, you should play it really fast, but if you want a song to sound really, really fast, you should put a slow part right in the middle for contrast. Brilliant, no? So call all of your old bombast-lovin' pals and let them know that they can resume carving "S L A Y E R" into their forearms with pride.
� 1978-1999 College Media, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

I never thought that Kerry King's manic guitar playing, a weapon of sonic annihilation that is Slayer's backbone, would find its way into a groove - and not just any old groove, but a purely `90s Deftones-like one. Despite the rather obvious pitch for a modern audience, Diabolus In Musica is Slayer's finest since 1994's Divine Intervention. Both savagely fast and mechanically slow, Diabolus... spans nearly the entire metal spectrum. Slayer sounds completely confident in its vision here, sometimes playing as slowly as it did on the classic South Of Heaven, while Tommy Araya barks his vocals as if the heavens should respond. Then, exploding out of the agonizing lethargy, the band kicks into overdrive to stir up barbarous chaos and flaunt its power as ruler of the metal world.
� 1978-1999 College Media, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

From its ominous, throbbing beginnings, Diabolus In Musica is a 40-minute trip into the dark, sometimes politically/socially conscious innards of Slayer. It's a rough trip, but that's what Slayer fans expect from this seminal, 15-year-old lineup. And at a time when, for better or worse, one-time thrash compatriots like Megadeth and Metallica are practically mainstream, Slayer has lost none of its teenaged, testosterone-fueled anger and raging riffing, if new songs like "Perversions Of Pain" and "Love To Hate" are any indication. Slayer is not sinister to the point of being cartoonish, as is the case with quite a few extreme and death metal outfits; this band is the real deal, and whether lyrics such as "I hate your church.... I'll see you burn," and lines about a "killing spree" seem, depending on your point of view, either banal, bothersome or picket-worthy, Slayer is unrepentantly rocking. Fans of such consummate Slayer LPs as Reign In Blood, Seasons In The Abyss and South Of Heaven will appreciate this 11-song collection of baleful, brutal and wonderfully rendered fierceness, almost as much as the fact that Diabolus In Musica probably won't make Slayer the next thrash metal band to be accepted by the mainstream.
� 1978-1999 College Media, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Slayer's last full album of all-original material, Divine Intervention, found the thrash metal kings spinning their wheels with a mostly generic retread of past riffs. Three-and-a-half years later, Diabolus in Musica positions Slayer back on track with a vicious effort that maintains their brutally heavy approach, yet adds a few new colors. Diabolus kicks off with "Bitter Peace," which opens with a slow build before breaking out into an ultra- fast rhythmic thrust reminiscent of Slayer's 1985 epic, "Hell Awaits." While the band has varied the tempos in their music for a long time now, there's still no one who thrashes better. What sets them apart from countless other death metal outfits who have imitated them -- often with cheesy results -- is the band's effortless control and precision while playing at lightning- fast speeds. Drummer Paul Bostaph (returning after a year- and- a- half break) deserves a lot of credit for that; despite the rapid pace, the band never sounds like it's losing control of the song. Much of the album finds Slayer changing tempos within songs, which makes for interesting dynamics but tends to make the songs less catchy. If there's anything that keeps Diabolus from resting alongside Reign in Blood and South of Heaven as a bonafide Slayer classic, it's a lack of truly memorable hooks - another element that has always set the band apart from all the other thrash wannabes -- and a little flabbiness in the album's midsection. Nevertheless, there's still a lot of monstrous metal here. "Stain of Mind," "Death's Head," and "Overt Enemy" all feature some off- the- hook guitar pyrotechnics from riffmasters Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King, while the creepy "Desire" combines a sluggish, doom-laden riff with unsettling vocals from lead singer/bassist Tom Araya. And no other metal act working today could match the intensity of "Point" or "In the Name of God." After 14 years, Slayer are still the undisputed champs of extreme metal. The title of the album is a Latin phrase that means, literally, "devil's music." How devilishly appropriate it is.
Don Kaye
Copyright � 1994-1999 CDNOW, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slayer's last full album of all-original material, Divine Intervention, found the thrash metal kings spinning their wheels with a mostly generic retread of past riffs. Three- and- a- half years later, Diabolus in Musica positions Slayer back on track with a vicious effort that maintains their brutally heavy approach, yet adds a few new colors. Diabolus kicks off with "Bitter Peace," which opens with a slow build before breaking out into an ultra- fast rhythmic thrust reminiscent of Slayer's 1985 epic, "Hell Awaits." While the band has varied the tempos in their music for a long time now, there's still no one who thrashes better. What sets them apart from countless other death metal outfits who have imitated them -- often with cheesy results -- is the band's effortless control and precision while playing at lightning- fast speeds. Drummer Paul Bostaph (returning after a year- and- a- half break) deserves a lot of credit for that; despite the rapid pace, the band never sounds like it's losing control of the song. Much of the album finds Slayer changing tempos within songs, which makes for interesting dynamics but tends to make the songs less catchy. If there's anything that keeps Diabolus from resting alongside Reign in Blood and South of Heaven as a bonafide Slayer classic, it's a lack of truly memorable hooks - another element that has always set the band apart from all the other thrash wannabes -- and a little flabbiness in the album's midsection. Nevertheless, there's still a lot of monstrous metal here. "Stain of Mind," "Death's Head," and "Overt Enemy" all feature some off- the- hook guitar pyrotechnics from riffmasters Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King, while the creepy "Desire" combines a sluggish, doom- laden riff with unsettling vocals from lead singer/ bassist Tom Araya. And no other metal act working today could match the intensity of "Point" or "In the Name of God." After 14 years, Slayer are still the undisputed champs of extreme metal. The title of the album is a Latin phrase that means, literally, "devil's music." How devilishly appropriate it is. Don Kaye
Copyright � 1994-1999 CDNOW, Inc. All rights reserved.

A more apt title there never was. Translated, it means "evil in music," and Slayer's been the expert at that for years. No one takes you on a thrill ride through a bloody landscape of violence and murder like they do. Marilyn Manson? Ha. He can only imagine the precision and restraint this California foursome brings to all its work. Slayer allows no self-indulgence; if a band member tried any of that, I have a feeling they'd turn on each other like sharks. Their rhythms are rich and meaty, and even when Paul Bostaph is double- and triple-kicking the hell out of the bass drum, there's still plenty of groove to sink your teeth into. But it's lyrical conciseness that sets Slayer apart, and Diabolus -- their Columbia debut -- is no exception. They are as expert at the dramatic couplet as Shakespeare -- a mere two lines can encapsulate a song's soul. "Agony is life/Lechery is life/Godlessness is life," singer/bassist Tom Araya roars in "Stain of Mind." Life in the `90s, my friends. "Global tension starts aggression/Peace breaks out then breeds contempt unrest," he sings in "Bitter Peace," an ominous parallel to the ongoing nuclear stand-off between Pakistan and India. But my favorite (and probably the scariest one of all) comes again in "Stain of Mind": "Let the purest stain of mind/Wash the virtue from your eyes." An invitation? A warning? You decide.
Copyright � 1994-1999 CDNOW, Inc. All rights reserved.

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