A friend here on Steemit @DamianCraymond did a cool post about the band Slayer awhile ago. Tonight I am inspired so I felt like doing a Slayer post of my own. It all started by learning that Metallica's James Hetfield had moved to Vail, Colorado. I was looking into things and of course Youtube sidetracked me... I have zero doubt that ALL of you have experience with youtube distractions.

Let's talk Slayer... (though you should check out Damian's post... I really like how he presented it).

Slayer

I was a young Metal head growing up in a remote part of Colorado. I didn't live near the city. I did live near a lot of rancher/cowboys that occasionally I'd have friction with, so I was kind of an odd duck.

One day I wandered into an Alco (which was kind of like Walmart) and I was feeling particularly diabolical or something. I emerged from the Alco with these two albums...

As you can see from the captions I added to that image, I was likely reacting to Tipper Gore and the PMRC bullshit, or perhaps the latest Geraldo Rivera Devil Worshipper documentary making my mother paranoid. Either of those would do in a pinch.

I ended up with Slayer's Reign In Blood, and Grim Reaper's Rock You to Hell. This may have been the day I fell from grace, or perhaps it was they day I took my first bite of the apple of knowledge and was thus no longer blissfully ignorant.

One thing is for certain... REIGN IN BLOOD was like nothing I'd ever heard before. I was a huge metal fan, and I imported my metal into this remote region of Colorado. I corrupted many a person with new music.

REIGN IN BLOOD surprised me. Thrash/Speed Metal was my favorite genre at the time. This though took speed to a new level. It had some of the most brutal and rapid rhythms I'd ever heard. That is still true even to this day. To many this is considered one of the top metal albums ever. This was the day of the cassettes still, though I think a few fortunates were starting to get CD Players. I remember being bummed that the entire album actually fit on one side of a cassette tape. Normally, you have to flip the tape over to listen to the other half. With Reign in Blood you simply flipped it over and listened to the same tape again. This is because the songs were so fast they were short.

The opening track Angel of Death has what is likely one of the most amazing studio metal screams in history. It has even been sampled by a few hip hop artists, and techno people and used in their songs. It is about the Holocaust and the Nazi experimentation and killing of Jews. As such there are Jewish metal fans that actually love this song. Check it out...

Auschwitz, the meaning of pain
The way that I want you to die
Slow death, immense decay
Showers that cleanse you of your life
Forced in
Like cattle
You run
Stripped of
Your lifes worth
Human mice, for the angel of death
Four hundred thousand more to die
Angel of death
Monarch to the kingdom of the dead
Sadistic, surgeon of demise
Sadist of the noblest blood

Destroying, without mercy
To benefit the aryan race

Surgery, with no anesthesia
Fell the knife pierce you intensely
Inferior, no use to mankind
Strapped down screaming out to die
Angel of death
Monarch to the kingdom of the dead
Infamous butcher,
Angel of death

Pumped with fluid, inside your brain
Pressure in your skull begins pushing through your eyes
Burning flesh, drips away
Test of heat burns your skin, your mind starts to boil
Frigid cold, cracks your limbs
How long can you last
In this frozen water burial?
Sewn together, joining heads
Just a matter of time
til you rip yourselves apart
Millions laid out in their
Crowded tombs
Sickening ways to achieve
The holocaust
Seas of blood, bury life
Smell your death as it burns
Deep inside of you
Abacinate, eyes that bleed
Praying for the end of
Your wide awake nightmare
Wings of pain, reach out for you
His face of death staring down,
Your blood running cold
Injecting cells, dying eyes
Feeding on the screams of
The mutants hes creating
Pathetic harmless victims
Left to die
Rancid angel of death
Flying free

angel of death
Monarch to the kingdom of the dead
Infamous butcher,
Angel of death

Angel of death

Whoa

Yeah, Whoa. I learned a lot of vocabulary when I was younger from having to look up words in a lot of Slayer lyrics. They of course got the "They are Satanic!"

I have some questions...
"Are Stephen King , Edgar Allen Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Clive Barker, Dean R. Koontz satanic?"

"Why is it music that you can tell a story about anything you want, but as soon as you start telling a horror story you are satanic?"

These guys are way into horror literature, and movies. That is why their lyrics are what they are. I myself am not particularly religious but as far as I know Tom Araya Bass/Vocals for Slayer attends church.

This form of media when you tell a story makes you satanic.

By that logic I guess all the people singing about alcoholism, drug use, etc are all alcoholics and drug addicts....

In reality, such statements are purely Ad-Hominem attacks and have no actual logical basis. Sure there are some foolish Satanic people out there, but most people with much intelligence don't bother. That type of symbology sells though as it is banned and or viewed as a taboo. Taboos attract interest. So go ahead and keep restricting those violent movies, and video games. It'll make them that much more attractive to your children as they age. ;)

Life Continues

Then one summer I am a dish washer at a restaurant. I survived my shifts with my Sony Walkman cassette player and I remember distinctly the summer that Slayer's South of Heaven album came out. I played that one a lot. It was not nearly as fast as Reign in Blood, but how likely is it that lightning will strike the same exact place twice? It did however, have the powerful lyrics, drums, and the haunting use of all the intervals in music that classical artists avoided as the "Devil's Tones" and they were amazing at coming up with wicked sounding guitar riffs...

I would later in my next year of High School be told I needed to read some poetry in front of class. I would go on to read two Slayer songs from this album... Mandatory Suicide, and Live Undead. People (including my teacher) seemed to like my delivery. I might have been like the Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure where they say "Recite some lyrics..." :) That movie was still really new at the time and was one my friends and I really liked.

Mandatory Suicide

This song is powerful and is more or less an anti-war song. At least it is an anti-blindly running into war song. (sarcasm = some pretty satanic shit)

Murder at your every foot step.
A child's toy sudden death.
Sniper blazes you through your knees
Falling down can you feel the heat,
Burn!
Ambushed by the spray of lead
Count the bullet holes in your head.
Offspring sent out to cry,
Living mandatory suicide.
Suicide.

Holes burn deep in your chest,
Raked by machine gun fire.
Screaming soul sent out to die,
Living mandatory suicide.
Suicide.

Lying, dying, screaming in pain.
Begging, pleading, bullets drop like rain.
Mines explode, pain sheers through your brain,
Radical amputation, this is insane.

Fly swatter stakes drive through your chest.
Spikes impale you as you're forced off the crest.
Soldier of misfortune
Hunting with bated breath.

A vile smell, like tasting death.
Dead bodies, dying and wounded
Litter the city streets
Shattered glass, bits of clothing and human deceit.
Dying [in] terror,
Blood's cheap, it's everywhere.
Mandatory suicide, massacre on the front line.

Live Undead

This one should be pretty positive lyrically for people that like Zombies, Vampires, etc.

Cascaded darkness
Walls close in on me.
Nailed shut but my eyes still see.
Severe anguish as my body evolves.
The pain of life after death it resolves.

Emptiness in twilight's rebirth,
The faint sounds of shoveled earth.
Madness growing as your mind dissolves.
Merely secret in my dreams.

Night grows cold, twilight's near,
On the edge of madness the wounds are sheared.
Forms of hanging, flesh shredded carcass
No spared breath.
Imprisoned in a shell, ready to explode.
Dead soul,
Stone cold,
Out into the night.

Voices inside my head
Hold me under.
Voices oppress.
Like roaring thunder.
An echo bouncing inside my brain.
How much can I take of the pain,
The pain!

A war raging deep inside my head,
A split decision that will end with me dead.

You see the agony in my eyes,
Protruding aimless,
I think it's time to...die.

A cannibal's desire feeds the fire
that burns in your head.

Intense pain eats away at your brain,
Thorazine pumping through your veins.

Death walks inside you,
Smell death around you,
Hell's evil spell takes a soul,
Hear the sound of the bell
Counting off death tolls.

Laughing as you eternally rot,
Searching for human flesh
And life's blood.

Live Undead.

Influence on Society and other Artists

I believe Slayer went on to have further reach than people would suspect. They would occasionally end up in the sound track of various movies. Though the interesting thing for me was some of the bizarre and unexpected things other artists did with their songs.

Tori Amos - Raining Blood

So this one was pretty surprising and came out of nowhere. I remember the first time I heard this. I was very familiar with the Slayer song from the album Reign in Blood.

Apocalyptica

These guys are very much worthy of a post of their own, and I likely will provide one unless someone beats me to it. These amazing Cellists (they play Cellos!!!) have rocked many a Slayer, Metallica, and other song. They are absolutely amazing to watch and to listen to. Here is them doing a cover live of South of Heaven.

The Modern Era of Youtube

I've posted the video of Raining Blood being played on a Banjo on several other posts. I encountered a new fun one today and this partially inspired this post. This was the diversion I encountered on youtube.

Steem On!