Metal Reviews

Bathory and Celtic Frost are black metal, regardless of what modern genre purists would dictate. Your post reminds me to check out more Bolt Thrower

Boltthrower's Realms of Chaos is brutal - lots of groove and lots of demented grindy bits. In Battle There Is No Law is more primitive.

They turned more traditional Death Metal on Warmaster.

Bolt Thrower is a necessity, go forth and fill your ears with Bolt Thrower!

Speaking of early Slayer, I still regularly wish Slayer would have continued more along the lines of Show No Mercy for a few more albums. Tom's vocals were also better on that album, imo. Seriously. Hell Awaits, Reign In Blood and South of Heaven were awesome, but Show No Mercy is still Slayer's best album in my books.

The one thing that makes Show No Mercy unique is that it has the vibe of a runaway freight train. The riffs simply pummel along albeit in a more organic matter. I suspect it has something to do with Slayer still being rooted in NOWBHM.

Hence some of my favourite songs are the Antichrist, Die By The Sword and Black Magic.

Things started to get more "mechanical" and more Thrash sounding from Hell Awaits.

Indeed. And that style of black/thrashy heavy metal of SNM or blackened heavy metal of the first two Running Wild albums is something that I think was left behind too soon and only seems to resurface these days when black metal bands cover traditional heavy metal bands. It can sound even more raw and primitive than some of the later more extreme stuff. There is actually a local band here called Demontage who perform a similar mix. I wish more bands would.



Black Magic is one of my all-time favourite songs. It's hard to beat it.



Yeah, more mechanical would be a good way to describe it and perhaps why I think of the debut as more aggressive than even Angel of Death or Raining Blood.

Agreed on Show No Mercy; one of the all-time best.

I always felt let down by Reign In Blood, one of the most overrated albums ever.

I love Reign In Blood but in a different way to Show No Mercy.

I think Slayer's first weak album was Seasons In The Abyss which had some awesome tracks but also a lot of filler.