Reviews list for Slayer - Hell Awaits (1985)

In today's edition of Bash-a-Classic, I'm looking at 'Hell Awaits', album number two for Slayer, and I'm still struggling to see what made them stand out amongst all the other thrash metal bands of the 80's.

One of the notable differences between Slayer and the other members of the Big Four of thrash (Metallica, Megadeth and Anthrax) is that Slayer's music is much less melody-based, focusing more on raw aggression and darker themes. Unfortunately, the lack of melody, in both the guitar riffs and the vocals, makes it harder for any songs to really stick in my head.

While bands like Metallica and Anthrax were already utilizing plenty of vocal hooks and memorable guitar lines, 'Hell Awaits' is a barrage of mind-numbingly boring riffs that fail to do anything other than show off Slayer's penchant for sheer speed and wailing guitar solos that go absolutely nowhere. Tom Araya's vocal style, a weird combination of angry talking and shouting, doesn't produce anything catchy, with literally every single song on this album sounding identical to the last.

Despite repeated listens, I just can't get into this album. I know Slayer are one of metals most beloved bands, and in fairness they will go on to produce some great material, but damn, these earlier releases are just brutal, and not in the good way.

Slayer is not a band you should underestimate. They've been known controversially for their lyrics and cover arts of violence and Satanism, and real-life incidents such as frontman Tom Araya literally p*ssing on Venom's Conrad "Cronos" Lant during a tour for this album. Nonetheless, I'm glad to finally get into the thrash action of this band...

Their 1983 debut Show No Mercy has been known as more of a Maiden/Priest-influenced album, albeit more satanic. Basically a more melodic and less brutal thrash sound. Haunting the Chapel has been known as the EP that hinted at their darker heavier direction. I think choosing this album to review that sits right after moving out of the classic heavy metal-influenced sound and starting their full-on thrash sound that would reach its most brutal in Reign in Blood is a wise move of mine. So let's go! HELL AWAITS.

The title track is the perfect opener for one of the evilest-sounding albums on Earth. An unsettling reversed chant of "Join us..." fades in, ending with a growl of "WELCOME BACK!!!" Faster than you can respond to that demonic greeting, you're pulled into Slayer's demented realm with slow sludgy riffing. It's not until the 3-minute mark when the second half of fast thrash begins. It's quite a killer classic, I must say. "Kill Again" greatly gets you hooked into a menacing story in the lyrics, filled with as much graphic violence as a slasher film. The speed goes faster than a speeding cheetah. And there's more malicious violence to come... "At Dawn they Sleep" sounds quite evil, not just in the slower tempo but also the lyrics of bloodthirsty vampires, growled by Tom Araya.

"Praise of Death" is perhaps the best song here for me, though not as famous as the first track. The guitar's raw power add a lot to the evil sinister themes. The perfect top-notch drumming shows what a thrash genius Dave Lombardo is, hitting the kit hard and well. More of his infernal drumming fire is unleashed in "Necrophiliac", sounding as admirable as the rest of the instrumentation.

The riffing and different tempos get more complex in the longer "Crypts of Eternity". Araya's vocals have more extensive experimentation that he really nails. His bass is more audible while not getting much of the front stage. The guitars end up sounding quite thin, detracting a bit of heaviness. It's doesn't affect the song's greatness in any way, but it's quite noticeable and worth mentioning. However, what really gets me scratching my head is the closing track "Hardening of the Arteries". It seems quite rushed when the band wants to get everything finished before the album comes full circle with a similar riff to the album's beginning. It's good, but not the best attempt at finishing an album.

For those who enjoy wicked evil thrash anthems, Hell Awaits is what you want. Slayer made an album that has never disappointed heavier metalheads. Thrash fans shall headbang to the speed, structure, and darkness that made Slayer the unique thrash band they've been known as. This is mandatory for extreme metal fans. Welcome to Hell!

Favorites: "Hell Awaits", "Kill Again", "Praise of Death", "Crypts of Eternity"

Hell Awaits was the very first Slayer album I bought as I expanded my thrash metal awareness beyond Metallica's first two albums. It is probably my least favoured of their first three albums. I love the youthful exuberance of the debut (and it contains The Antichrist) and Reign in Blood is the greatest thrash album ever. But even despite that, Hell Awaits is still a fucking top-tier thrash metal release and most bands can only dream of producing something this awesome. 

When first listening to it all those decades ago it was, without doubt, the darkest album I had ever heard, with lyrics about hell, demons, serial killers and vampires, not in some tongue-in-cheek, Hammer Horror, camp-it-up style, but in red raw, visceral glee. Being the time, in the UK at least, of the video nasty laws banning "extreme" horror videos, it was hard to believe this was even allowed! Hell Awaits was most assuredly the biggest knee in the bollocks to the shiny glamour of the new romantics, hair metal and stadium rock that was proliferating in the mid-eighties and sowed the seeds, both musically and thematically, for much of the extreme metal that was to follow. This was most definitely an album and a band I could get behind.

Funnily, for a band as direct and in-your-face as Slayer, some of their most awesome tracks have an extended intro. I'm thinking Seasons in the Abyss, Raining Blood and, most pertinent to this review, the opener and title track, Hell Awaits, with the faded-in build-up and sinister backwards chanting of the intro. When the riff breaks and things begin in earnest, Tom Araya spills out words of an impending conquering of heaven by the hordes of hell, as if he was some old testament prophet in the throes of delivering demonically-inspired prophecy, fighting to impart the visions he has seen in a flurry of verbiage he can barely control. Add to this the increased intensity of guitarists Hanneman and King, their riffs bludgeoning metalheads worldwide insensible even as their solos left behing trails of blistering flesh, so white-hot were they. This was the first time I had heard solos so intense that it seemed like the Slayer duo had weaponised the art to the point that it could cause physical harm! Drummer Dave Lombardo had also grown exponentially in stature and confidence, although his tour-de-force was still an album away, and he and Araya's (very prominent) bass underpin and punctuate the two six-stringer's lethal assaults.

I think it is safe to say that this is an underappreciated album, which I am as guilty of as anyone. It feels like a quantifiably superior album to Show No Mercy with better performances, songwriting and production, yet I have a fondness for the debut that, irrationally, I don't feel for Hell Awaits on the same level - even whilst recognising it as a great album nonetheless. People are just weird I guess.

When Slayer’s debut album rose from Hell in 1983, there was really nothing like it, and it sat comfortably atop the heaviest, fastest, most evil records in the world. Times had changed, and for metal, that meant pushing boundaries. Many bands heard Slayer and those who didn’t try to do exactly what they did, tried to up the ante.

So when Slayer went to record their sophomore album, they didn’t create Show No Mercy vol. 2. They had been listening to Mercyful Fate, and were inspired to create more complex song structures, longer and more varied compositions. However, they would sacrifice none of their brutality in doing this. The complex song structures allowed them to capitalize on their ability to create a truly evil, infernal mood; this is captured best on the opener “Hell Awaits,” with its backwards chanting and plentiful mid-tempo sections between the assaults of speed. Dave employs double bass drumming on every track, rather than occasional bursts. Tom’s bark, while definitely solid on the debut, was perfected here. He rattled off vicious lines at a speed unheard of, and despite pushing his vocal chords to their aggressive limits, remained intelligible the whole time. For me, this is the Slayer album that actually took the longest to love, but that’s a testament to the depth and timelessness of the album itself.

Slayer didn’t exactly invent a new genre with this album, but despite the Thrash label, it was more important to the development of Death Metal than anything. Slayer abandoned most of their punk roots here (Though they’d bring them back for the next album) and the sound is unmistakably darker. Possessed’s Seven Churches is awarded the title of first Death Metal album, but it’s a short step from Hell Awaits, and had death growls been employed here, the music would sound right at home on a pure Death Metal record.

Slayer leave their influences behind and unleash an evil and aggressive maelstrom of thrash metal.

Slayer had been tremendously active since the release of their Show No Mercy debut album. Not only had they released the three track Haunting the Chapel EP and the Live Undead record, they’d also toured extensively with the likes of Venom and Exodus, all before the end of 1984. Guitarist Kerry King also played a few live gigs with Megadeth during the same period while Dave Mustaine was trying to find a second permanent guitarist. Mustaine assumed that King would become a full-time member of his band, and Slayer was clearly concerned with his involvement. Hanneman was even quoted at the time as saying “I guess we’re gonna get a new guitar player” in an interview. As it turned out, King left Megadeth after only five shows, causing a long running feud between the two legends that continues today. With the band still intact, Slayer entered the studio to record their second full length album in early 1985. This time around they’d have a decent recording budget which would allow them to hire professional assistance, a reward for the success they’d already brought to label Metal Blade Records after self-financing Show No Mercy. Hell Awaits was released in September 1985 and along with the step up in production, finalized the formation of a unique identity for Slayer that would stay with them for decades to come.

While Show No Mercy found Slayer imitating their favourite NWOBHM bands, albeit at higher speed and aggression, the Haunting the Chapel EP had really upped the ante on the darkness and pure thrash metal aspects of their sound. Hell Awaits would take this one step further in no uncertain terms and the whole package was given a morbid makeover. Albert Cuellar, who produced the iconic artwork for the Live Undead release, supplied one seriously attention-grabbing cover complete with demons in hell mutilating the bodies of the damned, and this alone suggested something much more sinister was contained within Hell Awaits. The satanic themed lyrics and imagery that had previously been utilised in moderation now took centre stage, suggesting King and Hanneman had been given full responsibility for that department, with Araya’s war and world issue themes nowhere to be seen. Tracks like Hell Awaits, Kill Again and Necrophiliac were more confronting, not to mention controversial, and fans lapped it up instantly. Musically the band had dropped the heavy metal aspects altogether, with no sign of melody, and added an increase in aggression to all elements of their sound. Monstrously evil riffs, chaotic leads, malice filled vocals and crushing drumming fill every moment of Hell Awaits and the true Slayer sound was at last fully formed.

The production on Hell Awaits is by no means perfect, but it was far superior to Show No Mercy. The bigger budget gave the band more freedom to record the way they wanted to, with Lombardo particularly happy to not have to overdub the cymbals, as he was forced to do on the debut. They also included some neat audio effects, with none more powerful than the ones used for the truly awesome intro. It’s unsurprising that Slayer would open most of their concerts for the next decade with Hell Awaits. Its increasingly audible build-up of feral guitar spasms and repetition of the words “join us” in reverse is both foreboding and excitement-inducing, and while it’s only around a minute in when a roar of “welcome back” blasts out of your speakers and the guitars and drums kick in, the vicious scene has truly been set. All that was needed to make Hell Awaits one of the greatest openings to any album in metal history was a decent riff or two and Slayer came up with four absolute ripsnorters back to back before the first line of lyrics are spat out. While this sort of inspired song structuring doesn’t persist for the album’s thirty-seven-minute running time, Hell Awaits unquestionably displayed a level of progression and complexity that would define their later material and inspire others in their wake.

Araya emits blasphemous lyrics at such velocity that it sounds like he’s struggling to keep up with the shredding riffs around him. He may not be passionate about the subject matter that his band mates placed in his hands, but you wouldn’t know it from his menacing performance. It’s also worth noting that his bass is more audible on Hell Awaits than is the norm for Slayer albums. He has a career long habit of merely playing along to the riffs rather than adding anything of substance, which often means he vanishes into the mix, but on Hell Awaits he’s given such volume that you can’t help but pay attention. Lombardo on the other hand really came into his own on this album and his newfound double bass skills are put to good use. The beefed-up production and improved recording circumstances helped him show the metal world just how much talent he possesses, and the scene awards were soon to come flowing in. But Slayer has always been based around awesome thrash riffs and King and Hanneman produce too many rippers to mention here along with their inimitable frenzy of leads. Each member of the band is close to the top of their game here and the result is damn good thrash metal in its purest form. Slayer would undoubtedly go on to produce better albums, but Hell Awaits is enormously significant and still entertaining twenty-five years on.