RE:RE:Re:RE:...
inhumanist wrote:
here's why I think Reign In Blood is death metal:
- bullshit musicology-sounding term predominantly used out of context by people without actual arguments who still want to impress, plus "tremolo-picking", because fuck yeah, that's what death metal is all about, right?
- Lyrics (lol!)
- (subjective)
- (subjective)
- unrelated, subjective bullshit about metal in the 80s in general
- unrelated whining about Slayer not being praised enough as death metal pioneers to your liking
- "thrash metal" does not exist (lol indeed)
- unrelated opinion on Slayer's early career in general
Thanks bro, now I see the light! Also, Maiden's 'Killers' might just be brutal death metal, I think. It has metal riffs, just like brutal death metal, and I like it, and cool cover artwork, and I like it, and heavy metal was always an umbrella term for brutal death metal bands and those who wish they played brutal death metal, anyways, right? Plus, I like it, and non-chromatic-atonal-disharmonically-enchanted-magic-bullets, just like brutal death metal. Also, Maiden was cool in the 80s, and that album isn't praised enough. So yeah, totally brutal death metal, see?
Sonofabitch Thirdgeneration wrote:
LegendMaker you're being crazy, Reign in Blood is definitely one of the purest examples of thrash metal [...] Reign In Blood doesn't have any outside elements, it's totally pure stripped down merciless 100% thrash metal and that's why I think Reign In Blood is a representative thrash metal record.[...] I'd totally show them Reign In Blood, then they would make no mistake about it.
See, that's the opposite extreme from inhumanist's view, and I disagree with it as well. Megadeth is not the only thrash band who had its very own style while still being thrash, most of the good ones did, including Slayer of course. Because it's essentially thrash pushed to a logical extreme, RiB is not quite the most representative of thrash albums. It's representative of extremely over-the-top, diminutive thrash with a lot of proto-death-isms, and while bits and pieces of it can be found in plenty of later thrash albums (the title track's break, most notably), the vast majority of thrash albums sound pretty far removed from RiB. So that's not what I'd call the best example, and I don't think someone discovering thrash through RiB will have as good an idea of what thrash metal encompasses as, say, someone discovering thrash through 'Among the Living', 'No Place for Disgrace', 'The Legacy', 'Impact is Imminent' or 'Beneath the Remains', to name a few more. Sounds to me like there might be a little confusion in the "love it = it's representative" camp, though. These are two entirely separate criteria.
Sonofabitch Thirdgeneration wrote:
also I forgot to add, how in hell are Feel the Fire, Bonded by Blood, Sentence of Death and Infernal Overkill "more extreme" than Hell Awaits?
Thanks for asking. Between TrooperEd's vomiting, your post and perhaps a couple others defending the "Hell Awaits is extreme and/or awesome" point of view, I had to endure what must have been my 30th listen of 'Hell Awaits' overall, and the first one in at least 5 years. I can now bring a few nuances to my previous statements on it, although one thing hasn't changed: it still bores me shitless as an "album as a whole". Still love "At Dawn They Sleep" and "Hardening of the Arteries" to bits, though. This album probably was more influential than it sounds, as a few riffs and techniques were later found in other notable thrash albums ("Kill Again" contains the blueprint for both Terrible Certainty's title track's chorus riff and the entire album's horrible soloing, for instance), and yeah, in a lot of ways this contains future death metal riffs ideas that were further developed in RiB. But at the end of the day, this is a plodding, mostly mid-paced affair with a lot more brooding than aggression, and I maintain that it was by no means qualified for the then-ongoing race for extremity in thrash in general and the informal "evil thrash" movement in particular.
Why
this failed to affect the top of the extreme thrash food-chain upon its release in late 1985, when
this had been released in late 1984 and
that in mid 1985, should be self-explanatory. Riffing, tempo, drumming, vocals, even the soloing, everything was more vicious in Destruction's first two official releases than on 'Hell Awaits', and it came first, so it's not even that HA was outdone by the competition: in terms of pushing the boundaries to the extreme, it was already obsolete upon its release. That's why you don't see it cited too often in serious discussions about extreme thrash. Extremity is obviously a relative concept, and this album never was extreme in its historical context. Bonded by Bl... oh wait, that's
self-explanatory as well (especially considering this was recorded in fucking mid-1984!); BbB is tremendously more abrasive, vicious and relentless than HA, hands down. Okay, this leaves me with '
Feel the Fire' to explain, and I can see how this one might be surprising, considering the vocals are
relatively clean compared to Araya's gruff, fast-paced rapping. Well, FtF is just so much faster, visceral and in-your-face, the
drumming has such a sense of urgency and the riffing is so fucking vicious and relentless. This is an album that was
pushing thrash forward, as opposed to taking it through a side experiment of repetitive, slower riffing and other then-odd aesthetics (some of which, again, I'll concede later appeared in some early death metal, but this doesn't automatically make it extreme thrash). Yup, that's it, basically.
Oh also, on the whole
"Show no Mercy is just tougher Judas Priest lol" bullshit, I'd like to address that once more, since it came up several times in this thread. Quickly, though. This is
utter bullshit. Some people are so proud of having noticed (or, often, just
read) that early Slayer was NWoBHM-influenced, and/or that it was "more speed than thrash" that they are far too quick to discard this quintessential thrash masterpiece as not being thrash after all. ALL early thrash was strongly influenced by Motörhead, Venom and/or Maiden and Priest, Diamond Head and what have you, along with Discharge and other punk, and ALL early thrash was arguably speed/thrash if only for the fact that open-string palm-muting was not widespread in thrash before Ride the Lightning, if not Among the Living. Does this mean for a second that
this is not thrash? That this is
some slightly angrier Stained Class? Laughing my fucking ass off while rolling on the floor naked. The comparison with Priest begins and ends at
"awesome songwriting with plenty of well-thought-out chord progressions and poignant melodies", which is why Show no Mercy has always been and will always be the best Slayer album by far in my book.
Kveldulfr wrote:
It's known that Slayer wanted to push the extremity, but Kreator was already pretty brutal (proto death if you ask me).
No argument there, my friend.
Sonofabitch Thirdgeneration wrote:
I really couldnt help noticing this little part in that interview:
Quote:
Kerry: "I've got 11 songs done. I don't know who's gonna do 'em — I don't know who's gonna produce it, I don't know who's gonna play it. I think METALLICA's got [producer Greg Fidelman] monopolized. He had February open and I was hoping to get some work done in February and then February just got too busy for us. I don't know. If he gets another window, I would like to do it between Australia and Europe in June. That would be great — just be done with it, and it could get mixed while I am out on tour and be out in September or October. That's the perfect world, so we'll see."
I mean c'mon why is everyone so obsessed with Fidelman?
Especially bands like Metallica and Slayer, 2 really huge bands who could totally get anyone they wanted and then they're both fighting over this hack who cant mix a record without making it sound like your speakers are fucked up
Yeah, I cringed at this part as well, but not primarily for the same reason you did. What shocks me is not whichever incompetent trendy button-pusher he wants to produce the album (bear in mind Slipknot or SoaD is relevant modern metal stuff in his head), but rather how he phrases things as though HE was the band. He's been doing that for years if not decades, and at this point, there's a real possibility he actually believes this revisionist bullshit. Meanwhile, "his" band's latest set-list was almost exclusively comprised of Hanneman-penned songs...
Subrick wrote:
http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/Slayer/Reign_in_Blood/212/BastardHead
Everyone in this thread that's been mouthing off on Reign in Blood not being good needs to read this.
You're welcome.
Thanks, but no thanks. I'm not particularly thrilled by overlong, immature reviews that do very little in terms of analyzing the music and far too much in terms of freely and repeatedly insulting their perceived audience. Fellate RiB all you want, that's fine, but if you're in a
"must convert the infidels" mood, fuck right off, thank you so very much.