Slayer

Of the big four of thrash metal — Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer — there was always one that was the fastest, the darkest and the one that never made a single concession. While others softened their sound to reach more people or flirted with ballads, Slayer stayed faithful to one thing for almost forty years: extreme speed, total fury, noise as a force of nature. They were not there to be liked by everybody. They were there to be the most intense band on the planet, and they managed it.

California and a storm on the way

Slayer formed in 1981 in Huntington Park, in southern California, with a line-up that would become legendary: Tom Araya on bass and vocals, guitarists Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman, and Dave Lombardo on drums, a machine built for speed.

Araya is a fact repeated with pride in Chile, and rightly so: he was born in Viña del Mar on 6 June 1961 and his family emigrated to the United States when he was five. The singer of one of the most extreme bands in the history of metal came out of the Quinta Región.

From the start it was clear they were not going to do anything to please anyone. Their music was impossibly fast, aggressive, with solos that sounded like controlled chaos and lyrics about war, death and the horrors of humanity. They were not after beauty or radio play. They were after the impact of a sledgehammer.

Half an hour that changed metal

In October 1986 they released Reign in Blood, and changed the history of the genre. It is a short record — ten songs, twenty-eight minutes and fifty-five seconds — and that brevity is no accident: it is part of the work. It fitted whole on one side of a cassette, something the band loved. When producer Rick Rubin questioned how short it was, the answer was a shrug.

What is inside those twenty-nine minutes had not existed before: ten tracks fired off at full speed, with no breathing room and no filler, opening with "Angel of Death" and closing with "Raining Blood". Many still consider it the greatest thrash record ever made, and its influence reaches almost all the extreme metal that came after.

Other huge records followed — South of Heaven, from 1988, and Seasons in the Abyss, from 1990 — but Reign in Blood remained their monument. With it they proved that musical aggression could be taken to an extreme nobody had touched, and done with clockwork precision. Behind the savage noise there were brilliant musicians.

Faithful to the end

What is admirable about Slayer is the ferocious consistency. They never betrayed their sound to sell more. They never put out the ballad for radio. They never dressed up as something else. In a world where almost every band ends up softening, they went on being, decade after decade, the same implacable beast. That integrity earned them absolute loyalty from their followers, who saw them as the guardians of the genre's purity.

The hardest blow came on 2 May 2013, when Jeff Hanneman died at forty-nine, the author of several of their most emblematic songs. He had not played live with the band for two years: since early 2011 Gary Holt had been covering for him. It was the beginning of the end. Slayer carried on a few more years, announced a long farewell tour in 2018 and brought the curtain down on 30 November 2019, at the Forum in Los Angeles. Afterwards they came back for occasional dates, in front of crowds who had not forgotten them. They left the way they lived: at full volume.

What to remember

Slayer is the definition of artistic intransigence: a band that decided what it wanted to be and never gave ground, not for fame, not for money, not for fashion. With Reign in Blood they signed one of the most influential and extreme records in the history of music, and with their whole career they showed that consistency is also a form of greatness.

That one of their pillars was born in Viña del Mar adds an extra reason for pride for us. They were not for everybody, and that was exactly the idea. When "Raining Blood" starts and the world shakes, there they are: the ones who never asked permission, and the ones who understood before anyone else that half an hour well used can weigh more than a double album.

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Sources

Slayer is an American thrash metal band formed in 1981 in Huntington Park, California, by Tom Araya (bass and vocals), Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman (guitars) and Dave Lombardo (drums). Tom Araya was born on 6 June 1961 in Viña del Mar, Chile; his family emigrated to the United States when he was five. Slayer is one of thrash metal's so-called "Big Four", alongside Metallica, Megadeth and Anthrax. Their album "Reign in Blood", released in October 1986 and produced by Rick Rubin with the band, contains ten songs and runs twenty-eight minutes and fifty-five seconds; it opens with "Angel of Death" and closes with "Raining Blood", and is considered one of the most influential records in extreme metal. It was followed by "South of Heaven" (July 1988) and "Seasons in the Abyss" (October 1990). Jeff Hanneman stopped performing live with the band in early 2011, covered by Gary Holt, and died on 2 May 2013, aged 49. The band announced its farewell tour in January 2018 and gave the last concert of that tour on 30 November 2019 at the Forum in Los Angeles; it later returned to the stage for occasional appearances. Profile compiled for Rebobinados with fact-checking; interpretations of the meaning of the work are offered as the author's reading. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from Wikipedia and other coverage.