HELL AWAITS
SLAYER
(1984)
A1: HELL AWAITS (6:12); A2: KILL AGAIN (4:52); A3: AT DAWN THEY SLEEP (6:16).
B1: PRAISE OF DEATH (5:17); B2: NECROPHILIAC (3:43); B3: CRYPTS OF ETERNITY (6:37); B4: HARDENING OF THE ARTERIES (3:57).
CATEGORY: METAL | DURATION: 37 MINUTES
Packaged as Satanic metal, Slayer’s second album Hell Awaits is a radical metallic mutation, frenzied and brutal, iced with guitar riffs and solos of contorted feral beauty. As in hardcore, vocals are reduced to tuneless, barked imprecations – in this case to blood and the Devil – but the music has a complexity which belies the horrors of its monstrous exterior. The nihilistic sound and style created by Slayer on Hell Awaits, although often grouped with that of Metallica – bizarrely, since the two are almost completely different – may now be regarded as a key recording influencing what would later be termed as “death metal” music, a designation compounded by their next album Reign In Blood.
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERT YOUNG (1964-2014)
“ÆTERNUM VORTICE LACRIMARUM SOMNIAT”