Slayer - Reign in Blood
On October 7, 1986, "Slayer" released one of the biggest and most influential albums in the thrash metal genre - "Reign in Blood".
Here are 38 interesting facts about the album:
1. This is the band's third album, whose debut album was released 3 years earlier, in 1983.
2. The album contains 10 songs but runs for only 28:58, according to the band's official website, reflecting the extraordinary speed of the performances. That "achievement" is even more striking because the opening track, "Angel of Death", lasts 4:51.
3. The band said that when they finished the recordings they were shocked by the fact that the ten songs were in total less than half an hour of recording. Producer Rick Rubin, on the other hand, liked the result so much that he did not even ask the band to write and record more songs.
4. Because the album was so short, it fits into one side of a tape cassette. The band made sure that the album was also recorded on the other side of the cassette so that whoever listened to it could turn the cassette over and listen to it again.
5. This is Slayer's first album with legendary producer Rick Rubin, which greatly influenced the band's sound and development.
6. One of the things Rick Rubin persuaded the band to do is to give up the reverb effect altogether to produce a direct and sharp sound, just like the band's music.
7. This was the band's first album recorded during the daytime. They recorded their previous two albums late at night when no one was in the studio, to save money, since these two albums were self-funded.
8. The band intended to produce the fastest album ever. At that time they competed with "Metallica" and intended to produce the fastest and heaviest album. And so they did!
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9. The one who influenced the "disturbing" style of the album was mainly Jeff Hanneman who persuaded and encouraged the band members to listen to hardcore punk bands.
10. "Def Jam Recordings", founded by Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons, was then associated primarily with hip-hop. Working with "Slayer" brought Rubin into metal alongside his productions for "Run DMC" and the "Beastie Boys". His work with "Public Enemy" belongs to a later chapter: their debut album was released in 1987.
11. The same year Rick Rubin produced the album, he was also responsible for producing the "Beastie Boys" debut album "Licensed to Ill".
12. Rubin also asked guitarist Kerry King to play the solo in the "Beastie Boys" song "No Sleep Till Brooklyn", taken from that album.
13. The album faced distribution difficulties because of its opening track "Angel of Death", which describes Josef Mengele and the horrific experiments he performed on prisoners at Auschwitz. Columbia, which distributed "Def Jam" records as part of CBS, refused to distribute the album because of its controversial content. Al Teller was then president of the CBS Records Division, which also oversaw Columbia. According to an article in "Houston Press", his parents died in the Holocaust. Distribution was ultimately arranged through Geffen.
14. The neo-Nazi image of the band following the song was fueled by the fact that the letter "S" in the band's logo is reminiscent of the one used by the Nazis for the "SS" logo.
15. Jeff Hanneman wrote the song after reading books about Mengele. He rejected claims that it endorsed Nazism, explaining that he described the atrocities on the assumption that their evil was self-evident. However, in an interview with "Guitar World", he also made clear that it was not an explicit protest song against Nazism. It is therefore more accurate to describe it as a disturbing account of Mengele's crimes than to label it categorically an anti-Nazi song.
16. The long and chilling scream from the second 0:19 to 0:27 in the song "Angel of Death", was performed by bassist and singer Tom Araya in just two takes. This is one of the most chilling and iconic screams in the metal world.
17. "Angel of Death" closed the final show of the band's farewell tour in Inglewood, California, on November 30, 2019. It marked the end of that chapter, rather than the band's last-ever performance: "Slayer" subsequently returned to the stage.
18. The song appeared in "Gremlins 2: The New Batch" and "Jackass: The Movie".
19. The song can also be found in the computer game "Tony Hawk's Project 8".
20. The song "Raining Blood" can also be found in the game soundtracks "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" and Guitar Hero "III: Legends of Rock".
21. The song "Altar of Sacrifice" was written based on an old song by the band called "Ice Titan". The original version can be found in a box from 2003 - "Soundtrack to the Apocalypse".
22. Guitarist Kerry King said he improvised all of his solos on the album, during the recordings. He was overwhelmed by the positive criticism towards him, because he felt that he was just fiddling with unrelated solos.
23. The song "Angel of Death" was sampled in the song "She Watch Channel Zero ?!" "by the rap band "Public Enemy". The song was also sampled by the industrial band - "KMFDM" in the song "Godlike".
24. The song "Raining Blood" from the album was also sampled by Lil 'Jon as part of the single "Stop Fuckin' Wit Me" from 2004.
25. Singer Tori Amos made a cover of the song "Raining Blood" and stretched it to a 6-and-a-half minute version, on the album "Strange Little Girls", released in 2001, after September 11, featuring her interpretation of men's songs from her point of view.
26. "Body Count" recorded a medley of "Raining Blood" and "Postmortem" for "Bloodlust", released on March 31, 2017.
27. Drummer Dave Lombardo left during the album's tour over a financial dispute. Rick Rubin repeatedly urged him to return and offered him a salary. According to Lombardo, his wife finally convinced him, and he returned in 1987.
28. In 2004 "Slayer" played the album from beginning to end, on tour. In the song "Raining Blood", the last on the album, and the show, it was "raining blood" on the band, literally.
29. The drumming section in the opening of the song "Criminally Insane" was written by Jeff Hanneman.
30. The song's b-side included a remix in which drummer Dave Lombardo plays an electronic drum kit that triggered samples with a recording of him playing analog drums.
31. Lawrence "Larry" Carroll created the cover. It initially met resistance within the band: Kerry recalled that they did not want it, while Carroll remembered objections from a band member or management. They warmed to it, and Carroll went on to create further Slayer covers.
32. Although the album was not played on radio stations at all, it is the band's first album to enter the US Billboard 200 and bring them recognition among the mainstream metal community.
33. It is one of the most important albums in metal and is ranked 6th on "Rolling Stone" magazine's list of the 100 greatest metal albums of all time.
34. In 2006 "Metal Hammer" magazine ranked the album at number one on the list of albums released in the last 20 years.
35. 'Kerrang!' Magazine defined the album as the heaviest album of all time.
36. In 2016 "Loudwire" magazine ranked the album in first place out of the band's 12 albums.
37. During the sessions, Jeff Hanneman played a black Jackson Soloist fitted with EMG pickups, while Kerry King played a B.C. Rich Warlock. Both used Marshall JCM800 amplifiers. The guitars on the album were tuned a half-step below standard tuning, to Eb.
38. The famous slower riff in the middle of "Angel of Death" came from a combination of notes Jeff Hanneman liked. King explained in an interview that it was not based on a particular scale, but on an unusual sequence Hanneman put together. Unlike the fast tremolo picking used through much of the song, this riff is played with downstrokes.
Listen to the album on: Spotify, Apple Music.
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