Month: June 2022

Album Of The Week – June 6, 2022

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week7 Comments

So I had my album of the week post all written up and ready to go. I usually get them sorted the week prior and line out the posting itself on Sunday evening. Earlier in the day I noticed the date and recalled that June 6 is a special day (for some) – it is the International Day Of Slayer.

This was first conceived for June 6, 2006 (666, get it?) and has run every year since, at least as far as I know. There are no big parties or festivals that I know of. The point of the day is simple – listen to Slayer.

Since this year’s International Day Of Slayer falls on a Monday, I decided to switch gears and cover a Slayer album for the AOTW. I just hope I can find a shorter one so I can bang this out real quick…

Slayer – Reign In Blood

Released October 7, 1986 via Def Jam Records

My Favorite Tracks – Raining Blood, Altar Of Sacrifice, Angel Of Death

Slayer released their third studio effort after jumping labels, from Metal Blade to Rick Rubin’s Def Jam Records. Rick Rubin’s production efforts would see Slayer transform their sound from their early days into a whole other beast.

Reign In Blood is an impossibly fast and brutal record. 10 tracks clock in with a 28:55 runtime, a ridiculous running time for a full-length album in the 1980’s. 7 of the songs come in with a sub-3 minute clock and one is under 2 minutes. It’s pretty insane for something not actually an EP.

The album is a cornerstone in the realm of thrash. It was the most brutal and fast record around, even when considering the metal underground. Not much was going on like this at the time, even early death metal wasn’t flailing along at this pace.

It will take me longer to discuss the album than to listen to it, so let’s have at it. Even with the almost stupid runtimes, there are highlights and things to discuss here.

Angel Of Death

The thrash assault begins right of the bat, as the band pounds out an intro that leads to a sick Tom Araya scream. The resulting song outlines the life and crimes of Dr. Josef Mengele, a Nazi war criminal who conducted horrific, inhuman experiments on concentration camp victims. The song is the longest on the album at nearly 5 minutes and is also the most “conventional” in terms of verse-chorus-solo-etc structure.

There was controversy around the song – Def Jam’s distributor Columbia Records did not want to release Angel Of Death, so Geffen Records stepped in and distributed the album (though without their name on it). Slayer have been hounded by accusations of Nazism and racism due to the song, and echoes of that argument still play out today. The band members have repeatedly denied such viewpoints, offering that they were simply recounting history through the song. I think it’s much ado about nothing and I don’t conflate history-based lyrics with automatic support for the topic at hand.

Piece By Piece

It’s a really short song that doesn’t actually move at the fastest pace ever, the band kind of “chills” a bit (relative to how “chill” one can be with Reign In Blood). In a shocking twist, the song is about chopping someone up. No one saw that coming.

Necrophobic

This song is about being fearful of and morbidly obsessed with means of death. It’s very fast and the shortest song on the album, which probably deserves a trophy.

Altar Of Sacrifice

One of the album’s highlights, the song delves into ritual sacrifice, Hell and all that kind of stuff. It gets the thrashing job done in neck-snapping fashion, with plenty of dissonant riffage from Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman.

Jesus Saves

Slayer make up for their Satanic last track with a song about Jesus. I’m sure everyone can figure out the real angle here. For such a relentless album, the band lets this tune marinate at mid-pace for a minute before getting down to business in the other two minutes. The extremely brief chorus is one of the album’s more well-known bits.

Criminally Insane

It’s barely over two minutes long. The song’s meaning is found in the self-explanatory title. It’s Slayer. Nothing more to say.

Reborn

Another fast and short number about someone who is killed but then reborn through black magic or something. There are quite a few words in this song, which is also barely over two minutes.

Epidemic

Everyone is beating the shit out of their instruments for another two minutes. Fun fact – drummer Dave Lombardo quit Slayer after the tour for this album. Rick Rubin was able to talk him back into the studio after a bit of time off. I’d probably quit too if I had to play drums like that for a fucking year.

Postmortem

Nearing the end now and a song that’s a bit more fleshed-out than the bits and pieces we’ve been getting. Though the song is called Postmortem, the lyrics are about the lead-up to that state. Another scream from Tom Araya in here, something he’d quit doing much of after this album. The song closes with an ultra-fast section that was probably about the fastest thing in music at the time.

Raining Blood

The album closer is the star of this show and is most likely Slayer’s best-known song. There might a be a few others that are somewhat readily known, but Raining Blood is definitely the band’s signature anthem.

A bit of thunder and an eerie quiet lead in to the track. It’s more like the sickening quiet before a tornado than it is a welcome respite. The immortal riff comes in, then the band pounds its way to the breakdown where the riff again makes its home. We get the familiar call of “raining blood!” from Tom Araya, then the band goes off the rails to close the song and album. A thunderstorm takes us home.

Reign In Blood was Slayer’s magnum opus and was a master class in brutal thrash metal that sent the scene into a maelstrom. Many other thrash bands felt like quitting, feeling unable to even touch what they’d heard. The album also had an outsized influence on the burgeoning extreme metal scene, providing a new template for brutality and speed. Many folks were paying attention.

Slayer’s album would leave such a mark that the band themselves never bothered trying to top it again. In contrast, the band turned the tempo down a lot on future releases. While some fans were disappointed with the move away from breakneck-paced thrash, I’d say it was a wise decision. There is no topping your magnum opus, many musical acts have learned that sad fact the hard way. Slayer instead pursued other ground, remaining a heavy, dissonant force while not even attempting to do Reign In Blood II. And Slayer would eventually retire in 2019 due mainly to Tom Araya’s neck problems derived from headbanging, so no need to push the envelope again.

So it is June 6, International Day Of Slayer. And here is one of the craziest albums ever recorded. Enjoy.

The Song Remains The Same – Hysteria

On By bigbadburchIn The Song Remains The Same7 Comments

Time again for that fun little game where I line up a bunch of different songs with the same name and see what’s what. The first one I did was a total no-contest but this time around we’ve got a fight on our hands. I’m personally familiar with two of the songs and have been discovering some other stuff as I’ve searched around for more with the same name.

Our song today is Hysteria. One entry will be ultra-obvious and another almost as evident. But beyond those this is a decently-used song title so I had to sort them down a bit. We have a range of contenders from different parts of the music spectrum to choose from today.

As always with these, this is not a complete list of artists who’ve recorded a song with this name. There are quite a few for this one and I’m not including everyone.

Ceremony

I’ll lead off with a new-to-me band that I found by searching “hysteria” on Spotify. This was the first unfamiliar result that came up and, well, I guess I’m the one who has been missing out. Ceremony are a punk rock outfit from California and are noted for changing their formula across albums.

Ceremony’s version of Hysteria comes from their 2012 album Zoo and was a single release as well. This is a really nice song and I’ve been jamming out to more of the band since running across them for this post. And this tune will bear consideration in the final voting even with the heavyweights it’s up against.

Def Leppard

Likely the most known variant of this song, it’s the title track from the 1987 album where the British rockers literally took over the world. This album was all-conquering and was everywhere for eons. Hysteria is one of the album’s seven (!) singles.

Not much to discuss here, this is one early favorite to win the contest. They do have obvious competition and some not-as-obvious, but winning this would just be another day at the park for this monstrous song and album.

Poppy

This one is interesting – it’s from an artist who started on YouTube by acting like an android or something then eventually wound up doing her own music. Her version of Hysteria is from her 2021 album Flux.

This cut is honestly pretty cool. Poppy appears to operate somewhat in the dreampop/shoegaze space, stuff I’m cool with but not radically familiar with either. While I don’t think this song has what it takes to win this little contest I can say I didn’t mind at all checking it out.

Gothic Sex

This name showed up when I looked on a website that catalogs this “different song, same name” stuff I’m looking for. Just imagine what you’d get if you searched for “gothic sex” on Google. The band was active in the 1990’s but does not appear to have been active since the turn of the millennium and information about them is far more scarce than people engaging in the activity.

Hysteria is from their 1994 album Divided We Fall. The song is kinda cool, kinda goofy. I don’t mind it but I don’t think this new-to-me entrant will be walking away with the trophy today.

Muse

The other known quantity in this exercise, the other British rockers are here with a hit song from their hit album. It comes from their 2003 album Absolution, regarded by several to be their best.

Hysteria features one of music’s most well-done bass lines and is a dark descent into falling apart over being into someone who can’t be had. The video features Justin Theroux having a shirtless shitfit. This version of Hysteria is right up alongside Def Leppard’s as a favorite to win the contest.

Scooter

This German outfit is apparently very successful, is described as a “happy hardcore” rave/techno outfit, and I don’t want to talk about them anymore or go over any of this shit so here’s the song that’s clearly not going to win my award chosen by me.

I’ll go ahead and cut off the entries here because I’m not doing any more of that. Out of six contestants there are three worth considering – Ceremony, Def Leppard and Muse. Ceremony’s entry is nice but I’ll have to pass it over in favor of one of the two British rock acts.

But now I have a much bigger decision on my hands than it may seem to some. Yes, Leppard’s title track is part of one of music’s most celebrated albums. But the Muse effort is from what’s widely recognized as their best albums and it’s also, at least on my list, close to the top of their best overall songs.

I went over both tracks for a little while and I even thought about calling it a tie. But that’s a cop-out. After much deliberation, the winner is Muse.

It does seem odd to pick against the titanic Def Leppard track, but Muse does edge it out for me. Maybe it was shirtless Justin Theroux who put it over the top.

Congrats to the winners and all of the entrants (except Scooter wtf was that) and I’ll be back later for another battle of different songs that are the same.